


Night Will Fall and Drown the Sun

by SouthernContinentSkies



Series: When a Good Man Goes to War [1]
Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Dono doesn't want to play Cicero, Gen, Minority Whip is a hard job, Post-Canon, The Emperor Has Had Enough, Time Period: Reign of Gregor Vorbarra, and mixed efforts and results at prosecuting same, but here we are, by at least a decade, descriptions of offscreen sexual assault, descriptions of offscreen violence against women, or Cassandra, some Dono-related gender and gendering issues, suspenseful vote-counting, tw for canon-typical abuse of power
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-09-28 16:24:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20428919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SouthernContinentSkies/pseuds/SouthernContinentSkies
Summary: ...when a good man goes to war.(Demons Run, Doctor Who)When an oppressive Count, an ambivalent Council, and a determined Emperor combine to force Barrayar to the brink of a pseudo-constitutional crisis, only an aging Count Dono Vorrutyer seems to recognize the gravity of the situation. Unfortunately, Barrayar has no constitutional conventions - only civil war.Please read the tags for relevant content warnings. Rating updated Jan 2020, after additional reflection, but no changes to the text.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Forgive my diversion from A Wizard’s Tale, which I am definitely still working on - I was attacked by a rabid plot bunny. This was supposed to be about 5k words originally, but uh, it kept growing. There will be four chapters, unless something runs away with me again, and they are mostly done already. I'm just filling in some stubborn bits in the middle, so I should be posting the rest soon.
> 
> Also, I started this with the belief that Dono was at least 10 years older than Gregor, which made everything a bit off when I realized it was only about 5 - my apologies to all the perfectly hale and hearty 65-year-olds. Um… Barrayarans age faster, right? It also means that the ~20 years post-canon I was envisioning is more like 10-15, which has its own knock-on effects elsewhere… Unfortunately I couldn’t just push everyone older for other reasons of timing. *handwaves details* I apologize for any disruption of the suspension of disbelief this may cause.

Dono first heard the whispers around the edges of Vorhartung Castle. The corridors behind the Council Chamber quickly became a warren, and on vote days they were filled with people looking for a “quiet word” with the Counts or their associates - aides, petitioners, hangers-on. He had discovered that the walking stick Olivia had finally insisted on (and that he had resisted - he wasn’t _decrepit_, at only sixty-six, even if his joints were acting up a bit these days) was in fact an excellent cover for eavesdropping, while he “caught his breath.” On a typical voting day, he heard at least three tidbits of marginally interesting gossip, and if he was lucky, one of them might even be moderately salacious. One had to get one’s entertainment somehow, and keeping the pulse of the politically adjacent socialites tended to be useful.

These whispers were both more excited, and more serious, than usual. A certain Count - no names dear, we’re in public - was suspected of unspecified but scandalous misconduct with a District prole. No - she was his mistress, now trying to blackmail him over their recent child. No - she _was_ his child, and the mother’s husband was the blackmailer. No, no, listen - this is the truth, I heard it from the baker at Shokoladnitsa, whose sister works in the House...

Dono filed all this away with the requisite skepticism. There hadn’t been a seriously interesting sex scandal among the Counts since Vortaine and the Betan Ambassador’s aide six years ago, and the Vorbarr Sultana commentariat was naturally inclined to make up for lost time. With the commotion over the new Council Session vid broadcasts finally dying down (“Transparency In Legislation,” the state media had intoned, to skepticism from all sides), even the more serious observers would be looking for a new diversion.

\---

It was that same vid system, ironically, that gave Dono a much more serious perspective on the matter. He was standing underneath one of the new steel gantries in the vestibule, watching a series of techs bustling in to make repairs, taking advantage of the less-scheduled weekday. This pause was, for once, not remotely manufactured; between climbing the stairs from a committee meeting in the undercroft and traversing the temporarily cable-strewn expanse of the vestibule, his knees really did need a break. Damned if he’d sit, though. He wasn’t _old._

Above him, the techs were talking as they worked. Dono caught a few snatches - “How’s your cousin?” “Oh, you know, the doctors…” - but nothing particularly interesting, or political. The techs wouldn’t be personally involved in the first place, and the Vorhartung staff were positively drilled on discretion.

One of the techs climbed down the ladder and headed off through a far door, evidently for a replacement part, leaving the other two alone. There was silence for a moment. Dono was about to continue on his way when he heard one of them speak again.

“Is he gone?”

“Yeah. And he’ll be a half hour, at least. That store room’s a mess.”

Dono realized they meant the third tech. The floor of the gantry was dense enough that it was difficult to see through, from either side; either they’d forgotten about him, or they assumed he’d long since moved on. Before he could decide whether to cough deliberately, or otherwise announce himself, they continued.

“So, how is she really?”

“Recovering. Sort of. Considering.” The voice was grim.

“And… the other bit?”

“I haven’t heard anything. But he said he’d see.”

The other snorted. “He won’t. Why would he? They all stick together. He just didn’t want to make a scene.”

“I don’t think so,” the first one said. “He seemed really upset. And he asked which hospital she was in.”

“What, and you told him?” the other hissed. “You idiot! She’s a witness! She’s _the_ witness! She’s going to wake up dead next week if they think she’ll make a stink about it - look at your uncle!”

“Well, what was I supposed to say? I couldn’t tell him and then not tell him the rest, and I couldn’t lie to the Emperor.”

Below them, Dono froze. What the hell was this?

The other one spat. “You’re a fucking hypocrite, then,” he said derisively.

“Now _you’re_ the idiot,” his friend hissed. “Not in _here,_ do you want ImpSec on our heads?”

“You went and talked to their _boss_, _idiot,_ they already know where we are! You’ve fucked up the whole thing!”

“I care more about my cousin than your stupid -" 

“_Shut up!_” 

Silence fell. Dono tried not to shift his weight, or god forbid, clear his throat. This had become abruptly dangerous. Two angry proles, clearly no friends of the Vor; an injured woman, witness to a serious crime; the _Emperor_ involved, somehow; and one Count, standing alone in the shadows of an otherwise deserted room, overhearing evidence of a potentially treasonous conspiracy. _Shit._

He wasn’t alone in the building, however. From the stairs behind him came voices, and the noise of heavy but unhurried feet. His fellow committee members, no doubt, at last dispersing from their post-meeting socializing. He heard an abrupt noise above him; the techs had noticed. Nothing more would be forthcoming from them, now. 

Count Vorinnis and the new Count Vorpatril appeared at the top of the staircase. Dono held his breath. Ideally, they would be engrossed enough in their conversation not to hail him and give away his pre-existing presence, and then he could sneak out behind them. 

Luckily, the Counts passed without incident. Once he was sure they wouldn’t notice, he ambled after them, trying his best to look like a harmless old man who definitely had not been standing there listening the entire time. Behind and above him, the techs continued their work; hopefully, they hadn’t noticed him at all.

\--- 

With no unusual traffic, it was fifteen minutes in the ancient, ponderous groundcar between Vorhartung Castle and Vorrutyer House. Dono spent them brooding. Two obvious questions stuck out to him: what, exactly, had the tech’s cousin witnessed, and why did the tech think the Emperor would care? If they’d gone above their own Count’s head, it must have had something to do with the Count himself - or a family member, or a business partner, or- too many possibilities, none of them good.

When he arrived at home, he found Olivia at the comsonsole in her study. She appeared to be finishing a vidcall to one of her sisters. Dono paused in the doorway, a small, ambiguous smile on lips as he watched his wife. She’d always been so young, to him. At first it had made him uncomfortable - he knew how easy it was to fall into ill-advised romantic decisions at that age - but these days he was grateful for it. At only forty-seven, and as one of Barrayar’s first gene-cleaned children of the replicator, she would have years enough without him to start a new chapter in her life, if she desired. Selfishly, he clung to this idea as reassuring proof that his death wouldn’t generate any overly-distraught mourners. He certainly wouldn’t have any outside the family. 

She ended the call - or the recording, he realized, as she went through the motions of attaching the vid to an outgoing message. To Kareen or Martya, then: Delia was on Barrayar at the moment. Her husband had retired from ImpSec Komarr straight into a Lord Auditorship, and tended to split his assignments, and his time, between Vorbarr Sultana and Solstice. 

She closed the cover of the console, and turned in her seat to notice him loitering in the doorway. “Dono!” she said warmly. “I didn’t see you there. How was the meeting?” 

“Bureaucratic,” he said, with a much more genuine smile. “As usual. How’s your sister?” 

“Oh, Martya? She’s… well.” Olivia raised her eyebrows. “Enrique’s ‘on to something new,’ apparently, but she wouldn’t say exactly what. I told her I didn’t really want to know. Olga and Pierre will be getting color-changing miniature puppies for Winterfair if we’re not careful. For an Escobaran, he’s sometimes shockingly Ceta.” 

Dono smirked, and made a note to follow up with Enrique himself. Their toddling grandchildren would absolutely love miniature color-changing puppies, and the overly-conservative Lord Vorrutyer could do with some involuntary excitement in his life, in his father’s very personal opinion. 

The smirk slide off his face as he recalled his reason for seeking her out. “I need to talk to you,” he said firmly, shutting the door behind him. “About your… unorthodox connections, and how I might make use of them for something.” 

Olivia Koudelka Vorrutyer, granddaughter of a grocer and daughter of a cross-trained lady’s maid, had always known the advantages of friends in low places. While the other Countesses built networks of informants within the Great Houses of their peers, Olivia had cultivated contacts in such disparate positions as a monorail service tech, a florist in the Caravanserai, and a member of the custodial staff at ImpMil Hospital. Let the more hide-bound among the Vor matrons squabble over whether Lady Vorlaikal had been an irresponsible duenna for her daughter; Olivia could tell you whether the air filtration maintenance cycles at ImpSec HQ were running on schedule, and what it might mean if they weren’t. 

Olivia’s brow furrowed. “What are you plotting, Dono? Nothing dangerous, I hope.” 

“It’s not me that’s plotting,” he said grimly. “It’s the Emperor and a bunch of revolutionary proles. I think. That’s what I want to find out.” 

His wife fished a pen and a pad of flimsies from the detritus on the closed top of the console. “Well,” she said. “That sounds terrifyingly serious. Are they plotting together, or separately?” 

Dono settled himself on the settee opposite his wife, with only a token protest from his knees, and recounted the bulk of the techs’ conversation. 

Olivia’s brow furrowed as she took coded notes. “I’ll see if I can find which hospital this woman’s in,” she said. “It might be a needle in a sewing kit, but the combination of recent arrival from a District and what sounds like an attempt to conceal her identity might have stuck in the staff’s minds. And if we can find where she’s from, we’ve got the Count, and then we can look at the politics and see what we’re dealing with. In the meantime, how would Gregor even have heard about this? Those techs couldn’t have just walked into the Residence and set up a meeting.” 

“I’ve thought about that,” said Dono. “I think it must have been the oath-swearing, for the new Vorbarra District residents. Gregor turns up to do it himself sometimes, I've heard. If the tech and the cousin were running to the capital to escape their Count, they’d certainly want to switch allegiances while they were at it. If he happened to report for that on a day Gregor was subbing in for the deputy, he might have managed a word. If so, I’d like to know whether that was planning or happenstance. The Emperor’s advance schedule is strictly need-to-know; if there’s an anti-Vor outfit with that kind of access, someone at ImpSec has been sleeping at their desk.” 

Olivia frowned. “Dono, you know, I think this might be Count Vorcaron. I’ve been hearing some wild rumors about something scandalous with a District woman. They’re contradictory and obviously sensationalized, but it’s too much smoke not to be hiding some sort of fire.” 

“Vorcaron?” said Dono, surprised. “I’d heard these rumors, but not with any name attached. Chalked it up to bored, sex-starved socialites. But if those rumors are connected to this woman…” His face darkened. “Andrei Vorcaron’s always been an ass. ‘Mistress,’ hah. I just bet. She might even be the one in the hospital, if what I remember from Greta Vorkalloner has any basis in reality.” 

Olivia was still frowning, staring worriedly at, or perhaps through, the pad of flimsies. Dono made an inquisitive noise at her. 

“It’s… probably nothing,” she said slowly. “But this is exactly the sort of thing Gregor would want to do something about, if he could. That sort of casual cruelty is about the one thing that actually makes him angry, according to Mama. And she would know.” 

“Yes, I remember Minister Parrish,” said Dono. “Sacked in the middle of the night, after what came out in his divorce. But he can’t sack a Count, except in the martial sense. And that seems overkill, even if we’re talking about something disgustingly criminal.” 

Olivia let the pad fall to the coffee table, and raised the pen to nibble on it absently - her one bad habit. Dono overlooked it in favor of analyzing her tense expression. It was best not to interrupt Olivia when she was having ideas. 

“I wonder,” she said at last. “What do you think the odds are of a rape conviction in the Council, Dono?” 

Dono’s lips thinned. “Depends on how easy it is to impeach the evidence. But the bigger hurdle is always getting to that point in the first place. What’s in it for the main witness, after all?” 

“I agree,” said Olivia. “Sadly. But my point is - suppose there is a witness. Either a third party, or the woman herself in the person of her medical records - something more objective and less subject to, um, alternative interpretation. Something obvious. And suppose the Count, for obvious reasons, covers it up, or simply denies it. Where does she go next?” 

“Home, generally,” said Dono blackly. 

“But she didn’t, Dono. She went to the capital - to the Emperor, over the Count’s head. Or her cousin did. Her angry, revolutionary cousin.” 

Dono considered this. “ImpSec would never let that get anywhere. If they really are revolutionaries in any active sense, I'm sure ImpSec knows about them already, in fact. The worst that could happen is that this leaks out and makes the Counts look bad. Or Gregor, I suppose, but he can’t make the Counts vote with him, however obnoxious the alternative. Besides, if they are revolutionaries, they wouldn’t see the Emperor as likely to fulfill that sort of liege lord's obligation in the first place.” But his eyes narrowed thoughtfully as he remembered the techs’ disagreement on precisely that issue. 

“There’s another thing.” Olivia’s face was tight, closed. “On Gregor’s end. I’ve always wondered if this was, well, personal for him. Mama...” She trailed off; reorganized. “Mama used to tell us stories about Princess Kareen, and sometimes she’d… edit. I could tell. And she never, ever talked about Prince Serg. And - right before we married, she had this conversation with me. It was a version of Da’s line about the deserted beach and the concealed plasma arcs, but it wasn’t a joke. She said, ‘I’m not really worried, Olivia, since it’s Donna’ -yes, I know, it took her awhile- ‘but if he hurts you - leave. Being a Countess isn’t worth it. You have friends, allies; if you need to leave, you can. Don’t wait for a rescue.’ It was the most serious I’d ever seen her. And it made me wonder, because… Kareen couldn’t leave.” 

Dono pondered this in troubled silence. 

“But whether it’s personal or not,” Olivia continued, moving back to practicalities. “We’ve got what might be very damning evidence against a Count, an aggrieved relative petitioning the Emperor for redress of grievances, and a pair - or perhaps a group - of potential revolutionaries who might be waiting with an alternative if he won’t - or can’t - provide it. So I’ll ask you again, Dono: what do you think the odds are of a rape conviction in the Council of Counts?” 

Dono let out a breath. “Well,” he said. “I suppose I’d better start finding out.”

— 

The next step, while they waited on a better lead on the mysteriously hospitalized woman, was to figure out how far this had spread among the Vorbarr Sultana gossip-mongers, and what the prevailing winds of opinion had spread in their wake. If they were lucky, the overriding sentiment was dismay at Vorcaron’s obvious misconduct, and it would be much easier to prod the Council of Counts to a conviction. If they were unlucky, and the so-called luminaries of the capital regarded the situation as the awkward result of a mere indiscretion… But the time for trading votes would come later. The preliminary steps called for more subtle information gathering.

Dono’s past history with Byerly had shown him the value of tapping the collective knowledge of the capital’s town clowns. Frivolous though they might be individually, as a group they possessed some mysterious but undeniable gestalt consciousness: the id of the Vor, or at least of its underbelly. Plus, people talked when they drank. It was no coincidence that ImpSec found infiltrating the best bad parties so very useful. 

With his cousin a more-or-less permanent fixture on Jackson’s Whole (and long ago aged out of direct surveillance, in any case), Dono had cultivated other sources. Lord Antoine Vormercier, the heir’s heir, had enough brain cells to give intelligent reports, but enough social ambition to be moved to get them for his own purposes, and to want to associate with Count Vorrutyer in the first place. And he liked Dono’s residual reputation as a scandal-maker enough to speak to him in relative confidence; he thought it made him a man after his own heart. Privately, Dono thought Lord Antoine might feel differently if he more frequently remembered that Dono had been mostly a scandalous _woman_, but he wasn’t about to spoil a good source by reminding him. 

So, with the seed of the grim hypothetical in hand, and in the absence of any hard leads on the woman herself, he turned to Lord Antoine for development and confirmation. Considering the sensitivity of the subject, they met at Lord Antoine’s flat, which was far across the city from Vorhartung and the Caravanserai. Lord Antoine, like many of his age-mates, had found that sometimes the cheapest way to pay for housing was with money. He had traded his rooms in the opulent but family-occupied Vormercier House for an apartment in a very newly fashionable neighborhood whose chief luxury was privacy. This suited both Lord Antoine’s bohemian social circle and Dono’s more politically-oriented gossip-mongering. 

“So,” Dono said, deciding to rip off the bandage and see exactly what festered underneath. “Count Vorcaron.” 

Lord Antoine winced. “Good grief, has it really spread that far already? I only heard about it myself last week. Nasty business, if you believe the worst.” 

“I’ve been hearing vague whispers around Vorhartung for a month,” said Dono. “But nothing specific, or identifiable, until Tuesday.” 

“What sort of whispers?” 

Dono snorted. “A lot of wildly contradictory ones. There’s a woman, from the District; she’s his mistress, she’s his bastard, she’s a witness to something… nothing concrete.” 

Lord Antoine’s wince became more pronounced. “The thing is, from what I can tell… all of those are close to true.” 

Dono stared. “What? She’s his mistress _and_ his bastard?” 

“No - but she did _have_ his bastard, or, well, sort of…” 

Dono, his mouth set with apprehension, topped off the man’s wine glass pointedly. 

“It’s like this,” said Lord Antoine, after a long fortifying drink. “She was a maid in the Vorcaron seat, outside Saradimir. And then she turned up pregnant. And then her father went ballistic; running around town shouting about how the Count had assaulted his daughter, and impugning his honor and demanding compensation. And then the Saradimir Municipal Guard arrested him. And then the woman herself disappeared, and no one’s seen either of them since.” 

And then her cousin had spirited her out of the District somehow, and gone to make oath to his new Count in the capital, and told him the whole story… Dono closed his eyes. Yes, he could see it. He weighed the likelihood of Gregor’s doing nothing against the likelihood of him doing everything possible, and then contemplated what Gregor’s options in this case realistically were. _Balls._

“And then the Count apparently bragged to Valery Vorutkin at a party last week about how it’s easy to avoid bastards if you actually know what you’re doing,” Lord Antoine added, naming a Count’s nephew famous for his extramarital reproduction. “So that’s all over Vorbarr Sultana, and anyone who knows anything about what’s happened in Vorcaron’s District is putting it together, and wondering how deep he bothered to bury the body. Hers or the child’s,” he added, with another wince. “I told you it was a nasty business.” 

“What is he thinking?” said Dono, incredulous and increasingly worried. “Doesn’t he remember Lord Vorauthier?” 

Lord Vorauthier was the present Count Vorauthier’s nephew, and had been his heir until ten years ago, when he had been implicated in the murder of the commander of the Vorauthier Dubois municipal guard, and the subsequent coercion of his widow into becoming Lady Vorauthier. Lord Vorauthier - now just Stefan - had been indicted by the Counts for murder (though not for rape, to Gregor’s visible annoyance), and the woman had been granted an annulment, and additional compensation. 

Lord Antoine shrugged. “That was ten years ago. I barely remember it myself.” 

“That’s because you’re barely thirty,” Dono retorted. “Vorcaron certainly has no such excuse. And I doubt the Emperor’s views on the subject have changed.” 

“The Counts’ might have. Don’t look at me like that,” Lord Antoine said, defensively. “I’m just guessing what Vorcaron thinks. There’s been a lot of turnover, after all. Vorhalas, Vorpatril, Vorkosigan - and four or five others, I think. Gregor may not have the votes this time, especially for a sitting Count.” 

Dono pondered this. “He wouldn’t be happy about that. He really has no tolerance for this sort of thing.” 

“Well, I don’t see what he can do about it,” said Lord Antoine. “He’s not going to call a vote he can’t win, and he’s not going to start a war over a few proles.” 

Dono’s brow furrowed. “Mmm,” he said, non-committal. “I’m sure you’re right.” 

He wasn’t, however. For one thing, Antoine Vormercier wasn’t old enough to remember Princess Kareen - the previous one, that is, not her twenty-four-year-old grand-daughter - or enough of an insider to realize her relevance here. Though not even Dono had been, apparently; that circle must be very small. For another, Lord Antoine, like many of his peers, was too steeped in his casual classism to remember that “a few proles” was a group that could easily have encompassed not only Dono’s own wife, but also his mother-in-law, whose hospital room during a recent close call with pneumonia had always contained at least one Vorbarra rose. 

Moreover, it was one thing to ignore private misconduct in favor of public stability, distasteful though it might be to one’s principles. But Vorcaron was clearly not being particularly discreet. If the whispers were already at this volume in the capital - supported by leaks from the man himself, no less - then it must be common knowledge in his District. At a certain point, lack of action would verge on implicit sanction, and then the Emperor would have to do _something_, or risk being tarred with the same brush. And if Olivia’s theories were even close to true, the Emperor would absolutely do something. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Olivia finds the woman. Dono finds a committee. Together, they fight... something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y’all, there were supposed to be five other pieces to this chapter. And then this one became a 3500-word behemoth, so I’m publishing it on its own and moving the others to the next one.

When Dono returned to Vorrutyer House later that afternoon, Olivia was still out. Dono was disappointed; his conversation from Lord Antoine had provided confirmation, but not enough new information, and he was anxious to hear any progress Olivia might have made on her end. He busied himself instead with reorganizing the flimsies in his study, and tried not to be overly impatient.

By supper, however, Olivia had still not returned. Dono, moderately worried, started inquiring among the staff. According to the cook, the Countess had left early that afternoon, with one of the junior armsmen as a driver, and instructions not to wait dinner on her account. Only partially reassured, Dono resolved to eat on his own - the cook was giving him reproachful glances at the delay - and then give her one more hour. If his wife wasn’t back by then, he’d call Delia and start worrying in earnest.

It was only forty minutes later that the great front door creaked open. Dono, still downstairs in the front parlor - the better to simultaneously nurse a brandy and listen for the door - perked up instantly. It was Olivia, but she didn’t sound upset - tired, perhaps. He sank back into his armchair and waited. He couldn’t help his worrying, but Olivia hated a fuss. He’d let her come to him.

She did, several minutes later, entering the parlor and closing the door behind her with a sigh. She was still in her afternoon dress, he noticed - not a dinner visit, then. When she turned to look at him, her face was indeed tired, and sad.

“It’s not a rape case, Dono,” she said after a moment, and then sighed again. “I need a drink.”

Dono stood to retrieve another snifter. “Did you find her, then? That was quick.”

“Yes. I was right about the case attracting attention - more than I could have known, in fact. The facts are… well. At least as sensational as the rumors, I’m sorry to say. That custodian at ImpMil heard some gossip from her aunt, who’s a nurse - she’s at the Vorbohn Obstetric Center. I went to talk to her, actually. That’s where I was all afternoon. It is Vorcaron, by the way.” Olivia sank into the settee next to Dono’s chair, and accepted the generous pour of brandy he handed her with a wan smile.

Dono topped up his own glass and retook his seat. “I’m surprised they let you stay so long. Don’t those places have visiting hours?”

“They end before supper, yes. In her case, however, visitors are being managed by ImpSec, and once they’d let me in, they seemed disinclined to throw me out again as long as Silvia wanted me to stay. She was glad to have someone to talk to, poor girl. Her cousin visits, but he has to work, and of course ImpSec doesn’t let people just wander in off the ward.”

“They let you in, though?”

“Well…” she hesitated. “They cleared it with someone, first. It took rather a long time - I’m not sure how far they had to escalate to get permission. But I told them I’d wait, and I think they wanted to get me out of their nice, clear hallway with a minimum of fuss.” She smirked slightly. “They could tell I was in for the long haul, otherwise - I brought knitting.”

Dono’s lips twitched. Olivia didn’t really knit. She did know how; her mother had once given her a set of needles and yarn as a Winterfair gift, and Olivia was always eager to try new things. In her parents’ home, she’d found it a good way to entertain herself while letting her mother and sisters talk at and over her. In a quiet house with a library, however, the allure of rhythmic clacking and busy hands would always lose out to books, and so after her marriage, the needles had been banished to a parlor closet. These days, she only took them out when she wanted to look appropriately womanly and attentive while not actually listening to her conversation partner. Dono understood that the knitting basket was frequently in attendance during visits from their daughter-in-law. At any rate, presumably the ImpSec guards had found a placidly knitting Countess old enough to be their mother more of a puzzle than a threat.

“And?” He prompted.

Olivia was quiet for awhile, sipping her brandy and staring at the window. Outside, the sun had just been swallowed by the tall horizon of the Vorbarr Sultana skyline, and the crenellations around the top of the Vorrutyer House courtyard walls made a jagged black silhouette against the darkening sky.

“Silvia Kurnetsov,” she began, “grew up in Saradimir. Her father worked in the warehouses along the freight yards, and her mother had a job in a grocer’s. When she was fifteen, her mother died of a fever, and she left school to get a job herself. She worked in the house of one of the freight yard managers, as a maid, and then three years later - last year - he gave her a reference to the Count’s household. Where, of course, she met Vorcaron.” Her voice took on a sharp edge. “Apparently, Count Vorcaron is capable of being charming when it suits him, and she was only eighteen at the time. She was flattered by the attention.”

“And then he stopped being charming?” Dono guessed.

“No - as I said, it’s not a rape case. Though it may have got there eventually. Before his manners could wear off, though, she fell pregnant. Which was five months ago.”

Dono drew in a breath. “And she’s in the Obstetrics Center? Is she still -”

“No.” Olivia closed her eyes briefly, and took a fortifying sip of brandy before continuing. “She didn’t want an abortion. She’s an only child, and her mother apparently had trouble carrying to term, so she was afraid that if she terminated a viable pregnancy she might not get another chance. She decided to wait until the fourth month, just to be sure, and then tell the Count,” - Dono winced - “which she did. You can imagine the Count’s reaction.”

“Yes,” said Dono grimly, thinking of Valery Vorutkin. “Yes, I can. What the devil did she intend to accomplish by telling him?”

“Well, he doesn’t have any children himself, and he never remarried after his Countess died. Perhaps she thought he would consider an acknowledged bastard - or even an unacknowledged one, I suppose - better than nothing. She’s nineteen, Dono, on the string of the first man she thought actually liked her - and an older, sophisticated man to boot. She had stars in her eyes.”

Dono winced again. Olivia had been only twenty-one when they were engaged. Not that Olivia had been a Vorrutyer maid, or that he was anything like Vorcaron, but the parallels were still uncomfortable. 

“So, what,” he said, moving hastily on. “She told him to his face that she was carrying his bastard and not interested in terminating? And then he assaulted her?”

“Actually, he told her that they needed to think very carefully about this, and served them both tea - with his own hands, Silvia made sure to tell me - except that hers was drugged.” Olivia’s voice took on the flat quality of a studied distance. “And then he took care of the abortion himself, by getting his groom to remove her uterus and ovaries. He had veterinary equipment in the stables, you see. In case the horses needed treating.”

Dono’s mouth dropped open. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been literally stunned into silence.

“And that’s why she’s been in the hospital for weeks,” Olivia continued. “It wasn’t blunt force trauma, it was a nasty systemic infection from unsanitary amateur surgery. Plus, of course, figuring out the organ regrowth and the interim hormone management. Silvia’s been absolutely amazed by the medical technology of Vorbarr Sultana, by the way. She had no idea any of this was even possible.” Olivia took a long, bleak drink of brandy.

They both sat in silence for a moment. Dono still had no idea what to say, and Olivia was clearly done saying anything.

“So that’s what he meant,” said Dono, finally, flatly. “How - you know, I don’t even have an appropriate adjective.”

“Meant by what?”

“He apparently told Valery Vorutkin that it was ‘easy to avoid bastards if you know what you’re doing.’”

Olivia inhaled sharply, and then deliberately set her glass on the side table. “I see,” she said, with the practiced calm veneer of a long-suffering middle child. Dono wasn’t fooled; he knew that this was what his wife looked like when she was truly angry. She didn’t say anything else, however.

“You know,” he said slowly. “There’s a number of things that bother me about this.”

Olivia snorted.

“Yes, I know, but the obvious isn’t all of it. Wasn’t she on birth control? Why didn’t the Count make sure of that, if nothing else? Even before that, though - her mother died of ‘a fever’? It’s not the Time of Isolation, even in Vorcaron’s District. Did her parents just not bother to tell her what it was, or did she truly not get a real medical diagnosis? If she was treated, what the hell sort of fever is incurable with modern medicine? And if she wasn’t, why the hell not? Clearly they didn’t have much money, but even the Dendarii hill people have a basic medtech every few villages. You’re telling me Vorcaron’s District capital can’t even manage a free clinic? For either the fever or the implant?”

“I don’t know that Vorkosigan’s District is a fair comparison, Dono. Cordelia made free healthcare a personal crusade while she was Countess, and most other Districts don’t come close. The clinics in Vorrutyer Valois are based on her models, but they did require a fair bit of infrastructure investment to get to a good place on the operating expenses, if you remember. Investing in the schools to set up the tech pipeline, in particular. It doesn’t shock me that Vorcaron hasn’t bothered.”

“Charity care? Neighborhood benevolent associations? Labor organizations? Speaking of which - those Saradimir freight yards are the main industry of Vorcaron’s District. They manage the main interchange between the coastal and the interior freight lines, and something like sixty percent of all the North Continent ground shipping goes through them. I don’t know the details of Vorcaron’s finances, but he’s always acted like he has money, and I can certainly believe that that shipping exchange is lucrative enough that a yard manager can afford to hire a maid.”

“What I don’t understand is,” Dono continued. “How does a warehouse worker at such a profitable business not make enough to support himself and one child? In this labor market, with so many young people going off to Sergyar? Either the father has a gambling problem, or Vorcaron is managing his District with all the finesse of a toddler.” Dono frowned. “Or with massively sticky fingers, I suppose. If he were skimming everything off for himself and not bothering to reinvest in the District, that could explain a lot. No medical care, interrupted schooling, and not even a mention of replicators - her whole story sounds like something from fifty years ago. Other Districts have moved on - what’s wrong with Vorcaron’s?”

“There’s the matter of our Miss Kurnetsov’s career progression, as well,” said Olivia reflectively, drawn back into the analysis despite her clear emotional exhaustion. “It’s not usual to ask your current employer for a reference elsewhere while you’re still working, in domestic work. It’s not easy to get good staff, and if a good reference means someone you’ve already found has an easier time leaving, some employers won’t give one at all. If she was good enough at fifteen, or eighteen, to have earned a good reference in the first place, she was good enough to want to hold on to. I can certainly understand why she’d want to go work for the Count, but not why the manager - or his wife - would have wanted to help her do it.”

Dono raised an eyebrow. “Procurement? If the managers are getting paid well while their workers get stiffed, perhaps they’re more involved in his, ah, business than usual.”

Olivia made a disgusted face. “Considering his other behavior, I’m not sure I’d be surprised. It’s infuriating. For anyone other than a Count, even half of what we’re speculating about would amount to seriously illegal peculation. Any prole manager would be in prison already. But legally speaking, Vorcaron can’t embezzle from himself.”

“Even if it is just speculation, we can’t be the only ones doing it,” said Dono, rubbing his hand over his face. “And if things are bad enough in the District capital that working proles can’t even get basic services, who knows how much worse they are out in the country. God. Forget Kareen - it hardly matters if this is personal for Gregor or not. This is… Vorcaron’s been building a pile of kindling out there. ‘A bunch of revolutionary proles’ indeed - resentment’s been building in his District for years, I’d bet. All it would take is a spark. And now we’ve got one.”

“If the disaffection is that bad, surely Domestic Affairs has been watching it,” said Olivia. “They’d need more than negative sentiments to do any damage, whoever “they” are, and I doubt Domestic Affairs would let them amass contraband weapons with impunity. As you said before, ImpSec’s not just going to stand aside and let them revolt.”

“I may be reconsidering that assumption,” said Dono grimly. “It’s possible ImpSec might let them revolt just long enough to get rid of Vorcaron. It’s been done before.”

Olivia made a face. “The Ministry of Political Education, you mean? But that wasn’t Gregor, and I can’t see him repeating it. It’s a terribly messy way to accomplish anything. You’d basically be sanctioning a localized civil war. Hundreds of people would be dead before you could get a handle on it. Thousands, maybe. Especially if their medical resources are truly that thin.”

Dono sat silently for a moment, thinking. “If any of this is true,” he said finally. “And we are still just speculating, for all we’ve learned today - but ImpSec undoubtedly knows about all of this already, including the conditions in Vorcaron’s District and what that’s doing to potentially revolutionary sentiment. So Gregor, being Gregor, will have a plan. And, being Gregor, that plan will have involved asking a carefully curated group of experts what they think, first. So, either he’s been smuggling these experts into the Residence in the dead of night to pick their brains on the subject -”

“People would notice,” Olivia said dismissively. “The worst way to hide something is by pretending it’s a secret, especially in Vorbarr Sultana.”

“Exactly,” said Dono. “On the other hand, there are about ninety Imperial Committees on various things, and they organize a new one every time something crops up that multiple Ministries need to coordinate at a high level. If they’re anything like the Counts’ Committees - and I bet they are - nobody cares, at all, what they’re getting up to unless they’re in the room. And sometimes not even then. If you wanted to hide a ‘Head Off The Revolution’ committee somewhere, in among the weeds of the bureaucracy seems like an excellent place.”

“That makes sense,” said Olivia. “They’re not going to just call it the Head Off the Revolution Committee though, obviously. You’re the committee member - what do you think we should look for?”

Dono sighed. “God knows. I suppose we’ll just have to go through all of them and see what sticks out. Or, more accurately, what doesn’t. They generally publish the membership lists these days, when they announce them - that should help. I think I have the archives on a data chip in my desk.”

“I’ll get them,” said Olivia, rising. “I’ve got the releases from the Empress’s Women’s Committees in my own office. I don’t really think they will have hidden this in with the healthcare and education initiatives, let alone convened a bunch of female experts for it. On the other hand, considering the likely nature of the problems in Vorcaron’s District, I suppose we’d better check.”

“Yes, I suppose we should.” Dono sighed. Perhaps not all tonight, though. They might be up for hours, poring through back archives.

Olivia returned to the parlor with a stack of flimsies for herself and a comm-pad for Dono, which turned out to be loaded already with the data chip. 

“You’re a treasure, my dear,” he said warmly. “I’m not sure I could even have told you what drawer it was in.”

“I know,” Olivia said drily, settling herself on the settee with flimsies. “That’s why I keep track.”

They worked in companionable silence for awhile, occasionally tossing possible candidates back and forth.

“The Empress’s Select Committee on Access to Healthcare? Oh, no, Marie Vorfolse is on that, I think she’s Vorcaron’s cousin.”

“The Imperial Committee for the Advancement of Economic Development? It’s very prole-heavy.”

“No, that’s something to do with industry-friendly regulation - Lady Vorsmythe was telling me about it. The proles will be the industry tycoons, I expect. The Joint Committee on Rural Affairs?”

“God no - that’s Count Vorparadijs’s pet project, for some damn reason. Wheat yields, I think. And it’s probably not a Joint Committee at all.”

“What about this one?” said Olivia, frowning. “‘The Emperor’s Select Committee on Standardization.’”

“That does sound suspiciously innocuous. Who’s on it?”

“That’s the thing - Commodore Sokolov, Lord Auditor Galeni, Underminister Andropolous, Administrator Simmons from Sergyar… sixteen senior officers, ministers and oligarchs altogether - and not one Vor.”

Dono lowered his pad.

“But…” She flipped back through her papers. “This is the committee Duv came back to Barrayar for this time, I think. Delia told me the name of it, when she wrote that they were moving back again. Let me see…”

Olivia went off to her comconsole to look up the message. Dono chewed his fingernails.

“I found the message,” she said, and started reading aloud. “‘Duv has a new assignment,’ etcetera, ‘we’re moving back to Vorbarr Sultana again,’ yes, here it is: ‘the Emperor’s Select Committee on Standardization, something to do with ‘aligning standards throughout the Imperium,’ sounds terribly boring, so glad I’m not an Auditor. Duv is very excited, though; whenever he tries to explain it to me, it’s like he’s talking about his thesis all over again. Not that he can say very much. But I am glad I’ll be able to see you and Ma and Da again. Love, Delia.’” 

Olivia sat back on the comconsole bench, and narrowed her eyes at the screen.

“Dono,” she said. “We can’t be sure exactly what this committee's doing, but whatever it is - it’s been going on for over two years. That’s a long run-up for a legal change, if that’s what they’re going for. The big bio-law committees took two years from start to finish, but they were shopping proposals around the Counts much earlier than that. Have you heard anything about it?”

Dono shook his head. “No. Which means, if they’re looking for an actual vote in the Counts, they’re at least a year out from it. There’s no way to get enough votes ironed out on something radical much quicker than that, even in the Joint Council with fifteen votes already in Gregor’s pocket. If it’s a bunch of small administrative changes, on the other hand, they won’t need a vote - they’ll just make the recommendations to the relevant Ministry departments. And, of course, if Gregor’s planning a reprise of Dorca’s Unification, bureaucratically metaphorical or otherwise, they won’t ask for a vote at all.”

Olivia gave him a look that clearly reiterated her earlier skepticism, but she didn’t revisit the point. “What do you suppose they’re standardizing?” she asked instead. “Nominally, I mean.”

“Justice?” suggested Dono wryly. “I wish them luck with it. Maybe they can merge it with an Empress’s Select Committee on Chauvinism and kill a few more birds with the same stone.”

“Hmm,” said Olivia. “They can’t say that, though. Tax rates? Spending? Allowable personal profits? Maybe I can ask Delia.”

Dono raised his eyebrows. “They don’t need to say anything, other than to the Residence and the relevant Ministers. And if they did, they couldn’t say any of that, either. They’d all be a complete non-starter in the Council of Counts. Imperial restrictions on District management would undercut every scrap of Counts’ independence we managed to salvage from Dorca. No one would vote for it. Frankly, if I weren’t increasingly convinced the alternative might be worse, I’m not sure I’d vote for it myself.”

Olivia raised her own eyebrows back at him. “Even if it means a check on someone like Vorcaron?”

“And what’s the check on the Emperor?” Dono retorted, in a reflexively quieter voice. One didn’t discuss treason, even hypothetical treason, at volume. “I don’t mean Gregor, necessarily, but the next one? Or the next? What do you do if the next Vorcaron _is_ the Emperor? It’s a lot more difficult to evict the man who controls the army.”

Olivia frowned and muttered something under her breath that sounded like, “Beta manages.”

“Well, if you want a democracy on Barrayar, you’ll have to fight a war to do that, too,” said Dono shortly. “And then you’d be fighting both the Emperor and all the Counts, and you and I would be among the first against the wall at the end of it. So if it’s all the same to you, I’m going to hold out on endorsing that particular brand of treason.”

Olivia shot him an annoyed look. “If the damn -” she bit off, and then sighed. “Nevermind. I’m going to bed, Dono. It’s late, and I’ve had a very long day. Try not to start the Vor revolt while I’m asleep.”

She gathered her side of the flimsies in silence and disappeared back into the main hall. Dono could hear her talking to Reznik, the night duty armsman, and then climbing the stairs. 

Vorrutyer House was fairly empty, these days; with Lord Vorrutyer - Dmitry Clement - spending most of his time in the District with his family, his sister pursuing a doctorate at the University of Solstice, and the armsmen split between all of them, there were usually only a dozen people in the building at a time. It was a small number to split among five levels of old stone warren, and it did not give Dono any cover in which to hide from his wife. 

He sighed. Maybe he’d just stay down here until she got settled. He didn’t like going to bed without Olivia, but it was better than following her up and expanding annoyance into argument. One more glass of brandy, he decided, and then he’d go up and see if she were asleep.

Fortunately, the maid who found him snoring on the settee the next morning found lists of Imperial Committees as dull and uninformative as _almost_ everyone else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With apologies to Armando Ianucci for stealing his “obviously they’re hiding it in the most boring committee” bit from In The Loop.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Minority Whip is a hard job. Olivia visits her sister. Clouds gather.

The downside to more information, on Barrayar, was better-founded paranoia. Now that Dono had enough facts to spin his theory into more detailed scenarios of intrigue, he began to see traces of it everywhere. A conversation in a coffee shop falling silent when a Count’s heir walked by; a Minister’s wife leaving the city on extended holiday; a glint of Horus eyes in his periphery on the street. He couldn’t tell whether it was his observational skills or merely confirmation bias, but it was driving him mad. What was worse was that no one else, apart from possibly Olivia, seemed to notice anything at all.

No charges had been laid against Vorcaron, and no official action of any kind had yet been taken, concerning either his District management or Silvia Kurnetsov - but the whispers in the capital were piling up, and getting heavier, and wider in scope. Someone had picked up on the existence of a medical aspect, and put that together with the lack of a medical college in Saradimir to suggest that the unfortunate woman (as she was now being called) had died in childbirth for want of a doctor. Someone else had seized on the procurement angle that Dono had suggested himself, and started rumors of a secret brothel, staffed by District orphans and depositing its proceeds into the Count’s purse. And, more worrisome still, Olivia’s monorail tech had reported incredulous discussions among the working-class proles about the salaries of Saradimir freight workers and their apparent tendency to be injured on the job.

All of the gossip was wildly inflated, but most of it was close enough to the facts, as Dono knew them, that he wondered at the identity - and motivation - of the sources. What had begun as a nebulous sex scandal for the back rooms of Vor salons was slowly growing into something more. Even the more reclusive of the Counts had surely heard something by now. Before too much longer, the matter would move from “scandalous possibility” to “open secret,” and then anything might happen. Dono couldn’t put it off any longer; it was time to start at least a preliminary vote count.

His first stop was Count Boris Voraiken, a mainstay of the Conservatives who disagreed with Dono on almost everything. Closer with his own party, Dono could imagine most of the Progressive votes already, but he wanted to take the temperature of someone on the other side. Voraiken was a reasonable man, political differences aside, and perhaps the most likely of his party to agree to a meeting with Dono for no particular reason. He was no substitute for the old Count Vorhalas, but he distrusted the Progressives and what he called “those decadent degenerates” of his own party in equal measure, so perhaps he would provide a good indication of the median vote.

“So,” Dono began, once they were both comfortably ensconced in Voraiken’s comfortable back parlor, snifters of brandy in hand. “I’ve been hearing some unfortunate things about Count Vorcaron.”

Voraiken snorted in disgust. “You and half the city. The man has the discretion of a drunken prole.”

“And?”

“And I don’t think vetting town clown gossip is worth my time. Or even yours.” Voraiken sipped his brandy. “The stories about shoddy conditions in Saradimir are marginally interesting; I’d like to know what he’s doing with all that freight money if it’s not going back into the District. But as for this alleged maid - everyone knows what the Vorbarr Sultana commentariat does to scandals like that. Everything blows out of proportion. I’m not saying there’s no there there, but I am fairly certain the facts do not involve, for example, the late Countess Vorcaron’s grave, the Count’s full complement of armsmen, or a goat.”

“I have it on good authority,” said Dono deliberately, watching Voraiken’s face. “That authority being the woman herself, who Olivia spoke to directly - that while his seduction of an eighteen-year-old maid may be distasteful to some, the real problem was the part where he used his groom’s veterinary equipment to effect a forcible abortion by removing her reproductive organs.”

Voraiken’s glass paused on its way back to his mouth, which had assumed a horrified twist. The Count set it back on the side table, untouched.

“Well,” Count Voraiken said after a moment. “That may honestly be the most objectionable thing anyone has ever told me about a fellow Count.”

“How much, _exactly,_” said Dono carefully, “would you object to his behavior, in practice?”

Voraiken stared at him. “Are you trolling for votes? Good god, Dono, it won’t come to _that._”

Dono raised his eyebrows. “I don’t see why not. It is, after all, ‘the most objectionable thing anyone has ever told you about a fellow Count.’ Surely there are several criminal statutes implicated in the incident. Practicing surgery without a license, for a start.”

“District surgical licenses are issued by the authority of the Count, Dono. I’m sure that … _that_ constitutes something illegal, but I don’t think you can pile that one on.” Voraiken retrieved his brandy and took a fortifying swig. “In fact, unfortunate as it is, I don’t think you can pile anything on at all, under the circumstances. While you’ve been out listening at night clubs, apparently, I’ve been talking to the people who actually get a vote. The serious political thinkers are all preoccupied with the reports out of Vorcaron’s District - I don’t suppose you’ve heard?”

Dono narrowed his eyes. “Stories. Fragments. Nothing with any numbers attached.”

“Well, the freight yards are exactly as profitable as you’d think they are, and Vorcaron’s been raking it in hand over fist from the tax revenue. So much so, in fact, that it’s cut their actual operating expenses down to the bone. Worker pay, regular maintenance, even safety margins, apparently. It hasn’t affected shipping results, yet, but everyone can see it coming. Especially if they keep deferring maintenance. Sooner or later, they’ll have an accident big enough to cause cascading disruption, and then maybe we’ll finally get that secondary interchange down south, in Vorsoisson’s District - and then won’t Vorcaron feel like an idiot. As he should. Prioritizing short-term yields over long-term stability is a really stupid strategy.” 

Voraiken punctuated this speech by finishing his brandy. He proffered the bottle to Dono once he’d refilled it, but Dono waved him off. He was not overly happy with the direction of the conversation, and he had a feeling that by the end of this visit, he would need all the impulse control sobriety could offer.

“So, in addition to not reinvesting in the District out of the Count’s purse,” Dono said, “he’s preventing the District businesses from reinvesting on their own, by taxing the hell out of them before they get the chance. Lovely.”

“Yes, I thought you’d appreciate that. But the point is, if this whole thing gets into the Council officially, the Counts won’t be thinking about that poor girl, or at least not just her. They’ll be thinking about Vorcaron’s District, and how locking up the Count would affect themselves and their District economies, to say nothing of the political implications. You might get a few votes from the eastern Counts, if they’re that concerned about shipping disruptions, but his neighbors won’t lift a finger. After all, if people start leaving Saradimir because their Count can’t provide basic services, their taxes go into someone else’s pocket.”

Dono set his glass on the side table and fought the urge to rub his temples. “Look, forget the mismanagement. And the other Counts, for the moment. If anyone else had done a quarter of what’s being talked about with this maid, much less the full story, you’d chuck them in prison faster than anything,” he pointed out. “Why not Vorcaron?”

Count Voraiken sighed in distaste. “I can’t say he doesn’t deserve it. It is appalling behavior, especially from a Count.”

“Then -”

“But I don’t like the precedent it sets. I _can’t_ put aside the mismanagement, not when it’s going to go hand in glove with the other… issue, in the public imagination.” Voraiken made a face of disgust. “If we could prosecute just on that business, I suppose I’d vote for it, if what you say is really true. But if we do it now, it will look like we’re punishing him for his perfectly legal - if imprudent - financial decisions. And that, I’m not willing to do, and neither would most of the other Counts. The Council isn’t really a criminal court, after all - it’s a political body, and it makes political decisions, for primarily political reasons.”

“We like to pretend it doesn’t, when we’re sitting as a court,” said Dono drily. “But if you’d like a political reason in favor of conviction - I imagine the Emperor might be pushing pretty hard for it. I’m sure you, at least, remember Lord Vorauthier.”

“Even so.” Count Voraiken gestured dismissively. “That case was ten years ago, and Lord Vorauthier was just the heir. Nobody’s going to vote in a way that would intimidate one of our own out of exercising his District independence. Who might it be next? And if Gregor does get involved, they’ll dig in their heels even worse, and so would I, and for good reason. The law in the Districts is made by the Counts. The only law above them is the Emperor. Restricting what laws can be made in the Districts, especially by this sort of sideways disapproval, takes power away from the Counts and hands it to the Emperor.” 

“Or to the Counts in Council,” Dono pointed out. “Who might, collectively, have something to say about unacceptable conduct by one of our own, without enlarging Imperial power at our expense. Every time the Council makes any law, in fact, it reduces each Count’s power to act independently - but that’s been going on forever, and I don’t notice the Council dissolving into a dictatorship as a result.”

Voraiken raised a palm. “Yes, alright, I concede that. But this isn’t a matter of making laws, which we can discuss and debate and horsetrade and whatnot, and then enforce afterwards once everyone’s had fair warning. It’s a matter of prosecuting a sitting Count _for something else_ when the real problem is his bad judgment. We can’t start poking into what everyone’s doing with their maids the minute Gregor don’t like how much Vorwhosits raised his taxes this year.”

Dono suppressed a rush of anger, and merely raised an eyebrow in response. “It seems to me that one could avoid such hypothetical political prosecutions by, for example, not assaulting one’s staff.”

Voraiken sighed. “Look, you don’t have to wave that flag at me. I’ve said it was appalling, and I meant it. The woman deserves justice, or at least compensation. I just don’t think we can afford to give it to her.”

“And you’re alright with that?” Dono was treading on the edges of exasperation.

Voraiken spread his hands. “It doesn’t matter what I think about it. It’s how it works. If we let the Emperor imprison Counts on minor charges - ‘practicing surgery without a license,’ _really_ \- we’ll be handing him a veto over Council membership! It’s not as if Vorcaron is the only Count to… wander, as it were. We may as well shutter Vorhartung and resign ourselves to a dictatorship.”

Dono restrained himself. “This really isn’t about adultery,” he said, as sharply as he dared. “Or whatever specific law Vorcaron did break, for that matter.”

“No indeed!” said Voraiken. “That’s my point. That’s a drop in the bucket. The real issue is District independence. We can’t have the Emperor making up laws for the entire Imperium by himself. And that’s exactly what will happen if we can’t manage our own Districts, or vote our conscience in the Council, without the threat of political prosecution for whatever ImpSec can get its hands on next week.”

Dono frowned. “So your primary worry is that the Emperor might fabricate charges, or even evidence, for political reasons? Gregor’s never done that sort of thing.”

“Not yet. But everyone knows he favors the Progressives, and in addition to these shipping shenanigans, Vorcaron was also the main force behind defeating that damn galactic ‘marriage modernization’ proposal last year. Maybe Gregor’s tired of trying to legislate the long way. Maybe he’s taking after his grandfather in his old age. I’m not anxious to find out.” Voraiken took a drink of his brandy that was perhaps larger than etiquette would dictate.

Dono couldn’t disagree with that last point. It was his own point as well, though he hadn’t managed to set up for it as well as he would like. He might as well take the straight line as it was offered, however.

“Boris, if he is taking after Ezar, what do you think he’ll do if he wants a conviction and we don’t give him one? You can’t have it both ways.”

Voraiken waved a hand absently. “It can’t be that bad, surely. He’s lived through that sort of messy inter-House fighting before, after all. He won’t be any more anxious to repeat it than we are. And he isn’t going to assassinate thirty-one Counts. He might be developing Ezar’s tastes, but he sure as hell doesn’t have Yuri’s.”

\---

All in all, Dono left his meeting with Voraiken completely uninspired. Unfortunately, his visit to the new Count Vorkosigan was, in its own way, even worse. 

“Of course I’ll vote to convict him, if the evidence is there,” Count Aral Alexander Vorkosigan said. “And I’m sure Gregor wouldn’t bring it to a vote without evidence. But I don’t understand what else you want me to do about it. My father might have pulled a miracle out of his pocket, but none of the other Counts are going to listen to me.”

The rest of the conversation was just as limp. If Aral Alexander hadn’t been a certified replicator birth, and his mother not a paragon of integrity, Dono would have been tempted to question his parentage. The new Count had no opinion on the District management question, no idea about the connection between shipping maintenance and criminal charges, and no suggestions on which votes might be easiest to peel off for a conviction. 

Dono wanted to shake him. _You’re a Vorkosigan!_ he wanted to say. _You don’t get to lead from the back! Take some initiative before someone else takes it away from you!_

It was a pity they hadn’t managed the Inheritance Equality Act six years ago, Dono thought; the sister, Helen, would clearly have made a better choice, notwithstanding - or perhaps because of - her rabble-rousing university years. Something about scandalous youths forged better elders, Dono was certain, and at least three preceding generations of Counts Vorkosigan leant weighty evidence to that theory. But Lady Helen was off on Beta Colony, studying philosophy of government (god help us), and instead they had Aral Alexander, who at twenty-three had not yet grown beyond his father’s shadow, nor even, eighteen months out from the old Count’s death, his own grief. 

Count Dono had no sympathy. The death of your Count was the time to strike while the iron was hot, to forge your own identity before you could be pressed into the mold of your predecessor. No one could fit Miles Naismith Vorkosigan’s mold, and Aral Alexander would be foolish to try. But wallowing in the luxury of grief-in-peacetime had frozen him there, at least for now. If this conversation was any indication of his abilities, he had a lot of growing up to do before he would be seen in the capital as anything other than “the old Count Miles’ son.” Hopefully, he would have the opportunity to do it.

In the meantime, however, Dono decided that an orderly withdrawal might be necessary, to recalibrate his strategy in light of his thinner-than-expected resources. He directed Kazov, one of the more junior armsmen, to steer the massive groundcar back to Vorrutyer House. Perhaps Olivia would have better news from her end.

—

Olivia did not have better news. 

“I’ve been visiting Delia,” she said, handing off her wrap to a maid as she entered the parlor. “And I’ve put some troubling things together. Do you remember, when I read Delia’s message, how she said Duv was talking about this committee like it was his thesis?” 

She sank into the nearest armchair, and continued without waiting for Dono’s answer. “Well, I think I know why. Duv doesn’t share the specifics of the committee deliberations with Delia, of course, but he apparently comes home most days full of excitement about obscure historical details, including a whole soliloquy once on ‘intentional structures of establishment accountability and subaltern participation, whatever that means,’ per Delia.” 

She fixed Dono with a pointed look. “It seems like Duv’s not on this committee because of his ImpSec experience - it’s his insight as a comparative historian they want, in addition to his Komarran perspective. Specifically and especially on matters of justice and government accountability. On that, at least, your half-joke appears to have been right.”

Dono let out a breath. There was no reason for the Emperor to consult experts on other forms of government, in a closed committee with absolutely no Vor, that said anything good about the forecast for political stability.

“So then I took a closer look at the backgrounds of the other committee members,” Olivia continued. “Several of the other officers are either current or former ImpSec analysts, and at least one of the civilians also has an academic background, including undergraduate work in philosophy of government and a stint in labor organizing. The other Komarran on the committee, Ser Galston, was instrumental in establishing the framework of labor relations that most of the Komarran oligarchs' corporations use in their bargaining agreement process.” 

She sighed. “All together, it sounds to me like they’re trying to find some way to increase prole ‘buy-in’ to the Imperium, to use the Komarran phrase, while also establishing some version of independent accountability for the Counts that doesn’t involve relying on the Counts' policing themselves. So if you want to stave off wrenching change, Dono, I hope you can drag a conviction out of the Council. An acquittal on these facts would be just the opening they need to roll out whatever they’ve been cooking up in there.”

Dono closed his eyes for a moment. “Lovely,” he said heavily. “Does Delia know why you asked about the committee?”

Olivia shrugged. “If she did, she didn’t let on. On the one hand, she’s no idiot, and she’s probably heard as many of the pieces as I have by now - but on the other, I imagine Duv’s playing this as close to his own vest as possible, even at home. He knows how the four of us talk.”

Dono was silent for a moment. “Well, that’s unfortunate news,” he said finally. “Because it really doesn’t look good for a conviction in the Council. I’ve only spoken to Voraiken and Vorkosigan, but Voraiken had far more to say about District independence than I would have hoped, and Vorkosigan was no help at all.”

Olivia frowned sadly. “Poor Sasha. It’s not a good time for him to have to tackle something like this.”

Dono snorted. “It’s never a ‘good time’ for any crisis. _I_ managed.”

Olivia gave him a gently reproving look. “You were forty, dear, not twenty-three. There’s a big difference. Besides, he’s a smart boy; I’m sure he’ll improve.”

Dono snorted again, and fought the urge to mutter deprecations on Vorkosigan under his breath. 

Instead, he went to retrieve the vote-counting transparencies. He still preferred to do the calculations by hand - between fond memories and good luck superstitions regarding his first and only vote as Lord Dono, and the vastly decreased chances anyone snooping electronically, hard copies were, in his mind, vastly superior. And for this round, he would need all the luck and discretion he could come by. If Gregor’s all-prole committee was really trying to find a way to put a leash on the Counts, the only way to avoid a war would be to get the Counts to behave as though it were already in place. Unfortunately, based on today’s conversations and his knowledge of his peers, Dono estimated that that would be... difficult.

The main trouble was, there weren’t likely to be related votes this time, in part because timing was going to be difficult to predict. If Gregor was trying to puppeteer this, to whatever end, he’d call a special prosecutorial session at a time of his own choice, not bring it up at a routine meeting with a pre-populated agenda. And Dono couldn’t see any of the other Counts bothering to do so instead. With only one item in the meeting, and such an apparently polarizing one, there might not be any opportunity to vote-trade at all. He would probably have to do all his convincing solely on the merits - always a serious handicap. Dono sighed, and poured another glass of wine. It was a very Vor problem: perhaps alcohol would help.

\---

Several hours later, Dono threw the pile of transparencies aside in disgust, and drained the last of the wine for good measure. Between the nebulous nature of the ultimate charges, and the even more nebulous nature of hypothetical competing issues that might provide leverage, all paths at the moment appeared to lead to acquittal. He sighed. It was useless to continue this exercise without either more concrete information, or more allies. 

Before he could decide whether to start in on a vote-whipping strategy or just go to bed, his comconsole chimed. Frowning, he went to answer it. It was a bit late for a casual call, but early enough that it wasn’t necessarily a dire emergency.

It was Lord Vorrutyer, as it turned out. Dono sighed inwardly. He was probably calling to make sure his father was still alive; in the middle of everything else, Dono had forgotten to make their usual biweekly call himself, and not for the first time. Dono winced slightly in parental guilt. He wished he had a better relationship with the boy, but some people were best off with a certain distance between them. He loved Dmitry, truly, but he had to admit that if they weren’t blood, he might not like him very much.

“Sorry, my boy,” he said, as he punched up the call. “There’s been a lot of politics up here these past few weeks, and I’ve been running around with it so much it completely slipped my mind. Your mother and I are fine, though. How’s the District?”

His son’s face on the vidscreen could be described in many ways, but the most charitable to Dono was perhaps “longsuffering.” “I appreciate the update, sir,” Dmitry Clement said mildly. “But fortunately I wasn’t worried about your health - I talked to Mother yesterday.”

“Ah,” said Dono, with another twinge of guilt. Olivia had been running around at least as much as he had. “Well, good. Excellent.”

“It’s actually that political mess I’m calling about,” continued Dmitry, in a more serious tone. “The way Mother talked, you seem to be right in the thick of it, whatever it is, and the character of the rumors I’ve been hearing is… well, atrocious, frankly.” He hesitated. “Sir - Father. Can I… help you, with anything?”

_By which you mean, help me off the field and into a chair._ Dono suppressed a grimace. He wasn’t opposed to Dmitry’s avoidant political sensibilities, necessarily; he just wished they grew more from honor and less from fussiness.

“Look,” he said instead. “I appreciate the sentiment, Dmitry, but I’m doing what I think is necessary. I know your mother doesn’t fully agree with me on this, but the truth is even worse than the rumors, and I’m trying to prevent it getting even worse than that. I haven’t discussed it with you, not only because I knew you’d disapprove, but because frankly the best place for anyone who doesn’t have to be involved, including you, is on the sidelines. And not in Vorbarr Sultana, for goodness sake. The last thing I want right now is for any of you to come racing back to the capital.”

Dmitry’s surprise was visible on the screen. “Is it that bad?” he said, incredulously. “I said the rumors were atrocious, but I meant in the scandalous sense, not … potentially violent. Do you really think it will come to that?”

“I don’t know,” said Dono grimly. “But put it this way - I wouldn’t like to bet my family on it. If I didn’t know better, I’d be trying to pack your mother off to visit you before too much longer. But she’d never go, and honestly she’s been the bedrock of this whole operation. I’m not going to discuss the details with you, especially over a comm, but - essentially, there’s an issue on which I think the Emperor is going to try to force a vote, and I don’t think the Counts are going to go along. And if that happens… well. Who knows - but I worry.”

“I don’t see why you can’t just stay out of it,” said Dmitry, sighing. “Vote how the Emperor wants if you like, but for god’s sake leave it alone otherwise. This sort of politicking never works out well, that I can see.”

“There won’t be any such thing as staying out of it, if this blows up like I’m afraid it will. Just stay in the District, please, whatever you think of my political choices, and keep the armsmen close. You weren’t around for the Pretendership,” added Dono darkly. “And this might well be worse.”

It would be, too. He could see it in his mind’s eye, as he ended the vidcall: the Counts taking sides like dominoes, one knocking another into action until no one was left in the middle. If Gregor could bring off a quick strike, and present the Counts with Vorcaron’s death or exile as a _fait accompli_ \- and if the Counts collectively swallowed it, rather than raising their banners - then perhaps this mess could still be salvaged. Otherwise...

But the Counts wouldn’t go quietly, Dono knew; that was why they were heading into this mess to begin with. Donna Vorrutyer had been only eleven when Vordarian and Vorkosigan had split the capital between them, and Dono was now among the older generation of the Counts, though admittedly not the most ancient. His District for old Vorhalas, or even Vorlaisner, he thought. Too many of the old guard were gone, now, and their sons had never known war. He hoped they were old enough to understand the danger of fire without being burned.

The Residence, blocked by the surrounding buildings and intervening trees, was not directly visible from Vorrutyer House. Dono looked out of the facing window anyway, brooding in its general direction. A mere four blocks away, he was certain, the groundwork for civil war was slowly being laid.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dono goes to see a man. And Count Vorbretten. Some things are... unthinkable.

Dono’s further conversations with his peers over the next week continued in a similarly unproductive vein. Counts Vorharopulos and Vorvolynkin were not at home to his inquiries; either they really were off in their Districts or they were simply ignoring him. He managed to corner Vorkeres and Vorkalloner at separate dinner parties, but neither showed much interest in the subject of Count Vorcaron, or his District, beyond superficial pearl-clutching. Vortugalov sent him an outright refusal.

“Dammit! Why will no one listen to me on this? It’s like being a woman all over again!” Dono ranted to the decorative curtains in his study that night, after Olivia had expelled him from the parlor in exasperation. “Vorkosigan would have listened,” he muttered darkly into his wine glass. “That hyperactive rat bastard. He could have talked to Gregor, too. Dammit.” He finished the rest of the bottle himself, fueled by a combination of frenetic preoccupation and a frustrating lack of outlet for it, and slept fitfully on the study’s sofa. 

Olivia eyed him askance over the breakfast table the next morning, but said nothing. She had been back to visit Silvia Kurnetsov at the Obstetric Center several times, but after their near-argument the night of the committee revelation, she had left the political dimension entirely to him. Dono felt that this signaled some level of implied censure, but he had decided to ignore it. Under ordinary circumstances, he would be keen to reconcile with his wife, or at least understand what she was thinking - but if he was right, he couldn’t afford to ease off now. Until all this resolved itself, one way or another, they would have to agree to disagree.

In the regrettable absence of the late Count Vorkosigan, Dono decided he would have to approach the Emperor himself. He was still operating primarily on speculation, after all. Perhaps a trip straight to the source might provide more answers - though, it being Gregor, he wasn’t hopeful on that front - or at least give him a chance to borrow, steal, or beg some additional option, one that didn’t involve blood in the streets.

Dono didn’t have a close relationship with the Emperor, by any means, but he thought Gregor would at least give him a meeting. Dono wasn’t looking forward to it. He’d spoken to the Emperor in private only a handful of times, and none of them had gone much better than that first meeting with Byerly. Despite the positive outcome, that had been an unpleasant surprise in itself. His early interactions with the Emperor, as Lady Donna in formal social situations, had given him the impression that the man behind the stiff Imperial mask might be very different. While that had turned out to be true, the difference was not in the direction Dono had expected. Far from relaxing away from the official receiving line, Gregor in person somehow became even more focused, and sharper. Being on the other end of that attention was not unlike an encounter with a patient lepidopterist - from the wrong end of the pin. Dono did not enjoy it. Hopefully the man was less devastatingly insightful with his friends, or at least with the Empress.

He couldn’t think of anyone else to address the immediate issue, however. The only personal relationship Gregor really had among the Counts these days was Vorvolk, and he and Dono got on like two cats in a bag. Poor, staid Henri had never really wrapped his mind around Donna’s transformation, and Dono couldn’t resist tweaking someone so terminally literal. He doubted Count Vorvolk would even answer his comm at this point. Ah, well. With so many regrets swirling around him these days, his lack of relationship with Vorvolk was a mere snowflake in a blizzard.

Dono’s message to the Office of the Emperor requesting an appointment was answered with surprising alacrity, granting Count Vorrutyer an audience at the end of the week. Dono narrowed his eyes at the frozen image of the Emperor’s secretary at the end of the vidmessage. It was almost as if Gregor were expecting him. Well, it wouldn’t be the first time the Residence had known which way the Counts were jumping before their feet had left the ground. Perhaps the extra waiters at Countess Vorkeres’s dinner party had been ImpSec. 

\---

At the appointed hour that Friday, Dono alighted from the Vorrutyer groundcar at the portico of the Residence. He was early, but not too early; he was a Count, not a tradesman. He climbed the steps to join the Residence majordomo at the door. Kazov shut the groundcar door behind him and returned to the driver’s seat, easing the barge away from the steps. He’d wait outside. Dono wasn’t worried about one of his own armsmen gossiping, but he felt it prudent to minimize witnesses nonetheless. He would try to avoid it, with Gregor, but it was possible he might have to get blunt. 

As he followed his escort through the hallways, Dono tried to gauge the pitch of the activity around him. The Residence was always bustling; was it busier today, or was that his overactive paranoia again? It was certainly nowhere near the level of frenzy it had attained during that Cetagandan flap years ago. That was the last time Barrayar had come close to a shooting war, and therefore Dono’s main basis for comparison. But appearances could be deceiving, especially with Gregor, and a domestic ambush was very different than a foreign invasion. He’d keep his eyes open, just in case.

The outer rings of the Emperor’s offices were barely less busy than the corridors. Dono watched no less than seven harried assistant types bustle in and out in the few minutes it took himself and his escort to navigate the layers of introductory administrative protocol. Remarkably, he was shown into the Emperor’s inner office precisely on time. Either Gregor didn’t consider this worth flexing over, or his schedule was simply that tight today. It could be either; the machinations of the Residence were notoriously opaque.

The Emperor was at his desk, handing off a packet of flimsies to his secretary. He continued working while the man left, shuffling the remaining flimsies into various folders and generally ignoring Dono. Only when the door closed again did he look up, pinning Dono with his gaze. The lepidopterist was in full force today. Dono, being the ninth Count Vorrutyer and a descendant of goddamn Pierre Le Sanguinaire, absolutely did not gulp.

“Have a seat, Count Vorrutyer,” the Emperor said. His voice was even, admitting no clues and encouraging no analysis. Was this to be a friendly meeting, or an adversarial one? Impossible to say.

There was one chair on the visitor’s side of the desk. Its fine detailing and apparent Time of Isolation provenance were entirely in keeping with its august setting, but the bare wood did not look comfortable. Dono sat. It wasn’t.

“Sire,” he said, and then paused. The silence stretched, for a moment.

“This is a half-hour meeting, only, Count Vorrutyer,” said the Emperor, before it could stretch too far. “The Imperial schedule is, as ever, crowded.”

Dono let out a breath, and abandoned the idea of trying to work his way around to the topic more subtly. He would almost certainly lose control of the conversation the minute he opened his mouth anyway; he might as well save time.

“Sire,” he said again. “I’ve come to ask you what you want.”

The Emperor managed to raise an eyebrow without exhibiting any trace of surprise. “You requested this meeting, Count Vorrutyer. What is it that _you_ want?”

Dono supposed he deserved that. Gregor was never going to make it easy for him. 

“What I would _like,_” he said carefully, “is an, ah, appropriate resolution to the current unpleasantness so much discussed throughout the capital these days. I’ve come to discuss how that might be accomplished.”

“Indeed,” said the Emperor blandly. “Appropriate solutions are an admirable goal. We generally find them easier to accomplish when the ‘unpleasantness’ is more specifically defined, however.”

“I would also like,” Dono pressed on, ignoring the Emperor’s acerb - the man knew exactly what they were talking about, thank you very much - “to avoid any _inappropriate_ resolutions. Ones which might, shall we say, cause increased disorder in the city. Unrest, even. I am reliably informed the proles are becoming agitated. For example.”

“A Count behaving so, as you say, ‘unpleasantly,’ might indeed be grounds for agitation, Count Vorrutyer,” said the Emperor, apparently taking pity on him. “But the solution to that problem lies in the Council of Counts, through lawful prosecution. And the Council, of course, makes its decisions independently. What means do you imagine We might have to compel a conviction?”

Dono failed to completely suppress a glare. “What means” indeed: try several thousand of them, with Horus eyes on their collars. To say nothing of the infantry, and especially the damn fleet. An Imperial battlecruiser pointed in the right direction could accomplish an awful lot of compulsion. But at least Gregor was done pretending ignorance of the topic. 

“It might be difficult,” said Dono carefully, “to convince a majority of my peers that any lesser charge than treason, for one of our own number, is an appropriate use of our time.”

“I have every confidence that the Council of Counts will conduct themselves with honor in the pursuit of justice,” the Emperor returned. A deadpan platitude, or a repressed warning? Dono couldn’t tell. The man was even more implacable than usual.

“And if they don’t?”

“That would be... unthinkable,” said the Emperor. He did not smile.

“Dammit, Gregor!” Conversational strategy, not to mention feudal deference, be damned; after so much patronizing stonewalling, Dono could no longer contain himself. “Is this really the hill you want to kill on? With how many men’s lives will you buy justice?”

“With how many women’s lives will you buy peace?” the Emperor returned steadily, unperturbed.

Dono gritted his teeth. How dare the man! As if the former Donna Vorrutyer took any of this lightly. As if only soldiers died in war. He couldn’t tell whether Gregor was being serious, or just shaking him to see what information might fall out. This entire conversation was infuriating. But he’d taken his anger as far as he dared. If he got any more excitable, he’d have ImpSec in his face, and he wasn’t done yet.

“Surely there’s a subtler way to do this,” he said instead. “You don’t need to involve the entire Council, or even the entire District.”

“I hope you’re not suggesting that We assassinate a sitting Count,” said the Emperor mildly. “Apart from the legal implications, Count Vorrutyer, that wouldn’t seem to accomplish your goal of avoiding violence.”

“It would avoid a war,” Dono ground out.

“Would it?” Gregor quirked his eyebrows. “The last Emperor to try such a thing got his scalp on the wall of the Council Chamber for his troubles. It hardly seems like a winning strategy on Our part.”

Dono snorted. He didn’t believe for a minute that Simon Illyan had never overseen assassinations. Allegre, maybe; his tenure had been less exciting. _So far._

“Yuri didn’t try for any Counts,” he said instead. “In fact, he deliberately avoided Piotr Vorkosigan.”

“And look where that got him,” said Ezar’s grandson, very drily. “No, Count Vorrutyer, We will not bring violence to the families of anyone We hope to include in Our government. Morality aside, it would be massively counter-productive.”

Dono, taking a moment to parse this phrasing, was not remotely reassured. He certainly wouldn’t hope to include Vorcaron in _his_ hypothetical government, not to mention any number of other recalcitrant or obnoxious Counts. There was something in Gregor’s face that tugged at him, however. A certain glint of the eyes, perhaps; a certain angle of the mouth; a vague sense of performance unusual for an audience of one. Dono turned it over in his mind, and then dismissed it. Whatever game the Emperor might be playing, he wasn’t going to figure it out now.

“And yet,” the Emperor continued, fixing Dono with a sharper look. Dono’s attention returned with a vengeance. “There is something in this instant problem that inspires consideration of alternative solutions. We cannot, after all, abandon Our subjects to such dishonorable rule. It would be an abdication of Our own authority, moral or otherwise. And We are not interested in abdication." 

“I have been trying,” Gregor continued, falling into the personal address, “for _years,_ to convince the leaders of the Imperium, and especially the Counts, to care about justice as much as they say they care about honor. In all things, but especially for those who have been too often left behind: the poor, the disabled - women. The Regent Consort had a thing or two to say about that, as you might imagine.”

The Emperor’s gaze had left Dono’s, to his great relief, and shifted to the window, looking out to Ezar’s garden. Dono couldn’t see much from his own chair, but he imagined the Emperor’s view was more deliberately advantageous.

“And so I’ve convened committees, and ordered investigations, and subtly or overtly sponsored legislation,” the Emperor continued. “And with all that effort, I would have thought to make more progress. But everywhere I turn, someone invents another new excuse. And then I have to choose: what price insistence? What price delay?” His voice hardened; the steel under silk, the grinding stones beneath the glacier. “I’m not getting any younger, Count Vorrutyer. And I will not leave this dilemma as my son’s first test of honor. I will not -" his voice broke, reformed: more tempered still, with quieter intensity. “I will not meet my mother, with this work yet undone.”

Dono swallowed. This was more emotion in one speech than he had ever seen the Emperor display - and he’d been at the man’s wedding. Either it was a deliberate performance, perhaps to distract Dono from continuing the conversation, or Gregor really was taking it that personally. He wasn’t sure which would be worse. “It’s an admirable goal, Sire,” he said delicately. “And one that I have always supported, as you know. But do you have to do it _immediately?_”

“How long would you suggest We wait, Count Vorrutyer?” The Emperor’s face sharpened again, hard enough to cut. “Until she gets pregnant?”

Dono hesitated. That phrasing, and its accompanying tone of voice, had the ring of ugly truth about it: a certain creeping poison around the edges that he didn’t want to touch. It could, of course, be merely a reference to Miss Kurnetsov’s unfortunate condition - but he also recalled his wife’s worries about the late Princess Kareen, and wondered again if this really was that personal after all. 

It was difficult to tell. Talking to Gregor when he had an agenda was like dancing through a minefield. The man could find leverage in anything, but his favorite weapon was the sharp, unvarnished truth. He deployed it, for best effect, as a surprise to everyone but himself, hidden in the weeds of pomp and protocol until the unlucky courtier or bureaucrat tripped over it. Since Gregor commanded the vast resources of Imperial Security, with its legions of operatives and analysts, this was generally easy to arrange - but having seen Gregor’s tactics, and his dedication, Dono didn’t think the man would shrink from forging ammunition from his own past as necessary. He dearly hoped that he was wrong - if Gregor’s commitment to this exercise did indeed run that deeply, they might all be frankly fucked.

“Sire,” he said at last. “I’m not suggesting you let it go. I’m asking for time to get the votes together.”

“Can you get thirty? In any reasonable timeframe?”

“Is ten good men not enough these days?” Dono managed the ghost of a smile.

“I’m not a theist, Count Vorrutyer. Thirty, or nothing.” The Emperor’s face was impassive. As always, he declined to share Dono’s humor. So be it; Dono wasn’t really laughing anyway. 

When he left the meeting, very shortly afterwards, the door of the Emperor’s office closed behind him like the coverstone of a tomb.

—

In the aftermath of such a depressing conversation, Dono almost wanted to go straight home and seek solace in another bottle. He was doing that too much these days, he knew, but he was running out of sober distractions. 

On the other hand, there was one Count left that Dono expected might be more receptive to good sense. As the victim of that ridiculous genetic smear campaign, René Vorbretten had a sharper eye for nonsense than some of their peers. He and Dono didn’t always see eye to eye on political matters, but their joint ordeal with the Council leading up to his confirmation (and René’s reconfirmation) had provided them with the opportunity to become friends. Dono had been sure enough of his likely vote to put off involving him so far, but the cumulative demoralization of the past week suggested some form of restorative. If nothing else, the man would at least listen.

Indeed, René answered Dono’s comm with the air of one who could do with better news himself. The cloud over the capital was getting thicker and more toxic every day; it would be a reprieve for both of them to let their guard down and talk with a friend.

Entering the drawing room, Dono declined the Count’s offer of alcohol, with some regret. René’s wine was always excellent, but it would defeat the purpose of his electing a sober distraction, and it was only three in the afternoon. Not only would Olivia frown at him, but he might be in danger of nodding off before dinner, and he wanted to review the vote calculations again - just to torture himself, at this point, but he’d get anxious if he didn’t - so tea it was. Age was surely the greatest scourge of man - or some men, anyway.

“I’ve never cared about your genes before, Vorbretten,” grunted Dono as he eased his knee around the coffee table, sinking into a chair by the fire. “But they’re starting to get positively irritating.” The man’s hair was barely grey, for god’s sakes. At least he had had the good taste to develop some crows’ feet; with no wrinkles at sixty-five, he’d be completely unbearable.

“Cheer up, Vorrutyer,” René said drily. “I pay for it in bad jokes.”

Another time, Dono might have stretched their bit into a full routine, but he was running very short on humor these days, and this morning’s meeting had drained his remaining reserves entirely. Instead, he decided to cut to the chase.

“René, I was talking to Count Voraiken the other day,” he started.

“Good god, why?” René cut in. “I can’t imagine that was an invigorating experience.”

“It wasn’t, at all,” said Dono flatly. “But I wanted to sound out the median opposition on this Vorcaron business, and he was, sadly, very informative on that front.”

René furrowed his brow. “Opposition on what? Are there going to be charges for something? I’ve been hearing a lot of gossip, of course, but it’s been all smoke and no fire, so far. No hint of anything official.”

“Not yet, no.” Dono paused. “But I have… let’s call it a well-supported theory, that _Count Vorbarra_ is going to call a special prosecutorial session on the subject. Soon.”

René’s brow did not unfurrow. “On these rumors? I mean, I suppose the Residence has better information, but nothing I’ve heard suggests that this can stretch to treason. Even the District management issues aren’t illegal if the Count’s doing it himself. And we had enough trouble getting Lord Vorauthier over the bar, and that was for murder. Does Gregor really think he can scrape thirty-one votes for a rape charge, or whatever it is? For a sitting Count?”

“I do not believe,” said Dono quietly, “that he cares.”

René went through a number of different abortive facial expressions without speaking, while he processed the implications. “Ah, Dono,” he said finally. “Forgive me - I realize, with your wife, this is not the most sensitive - but, really, for one prole? That seems frankly absurd. Gregor’s never been one to overreact, and I can’t credit him starting now, no matter how much he might hate it.”

Dono took a breath; contemplated his teacup; let it out. “René,” he said, staring down into his tea resignedly. “I just came from a meeting with the Emperor this morning, where he told me, with an entirely straight face, that for the Counts to act with anything other than ‘honor in the pursuit of justice’ would be ‘unthinkable.’”

René’s face had settled on ‘uneasy.’ “‘Unthinkable’?” he repeated. 

Dono nodded slowly, raising his eyes to meet René’s. “‘Unthinkable’,” he repeated himself, reproducing Gregor’s more deliberate inflection. The changed emphasis did nothing better to the word. It sat in the air between them, a grenade with its pin half out.

Abandoning etiquette, Rene put his elbows on the table and rested his chin on his hands, pensively. He said nothing.

“Of course, it’s not just about the woman - Silvia Kurnetsov, by the way, an eighteen-year-old maid in the Count’s seat; Olivia found her. And it’s not a rape charge; it’s even worse, if you can credit that -”

René winced, but did not inquire.

“- it’s about the Counts’ inability, or unwillingness more like, to do anything about it.” Dono let out a breath. He’d been contemplating the question of Gregor’s fundamental motivation for some time now, and after this morning’s conversation, he was fairly certain that he’d hit on it. 

“Vorcaron is a one person problem,” he continued. “The Council of Counts not giving two shits is a systemic issue. I don’t think Gregor would start polishing sabres over one person’s misconduct, but I do think he would, and _will,_ clean house over the Council’s blatant unwillingness to address it. If he doesn’t, he’ll be effectively tolerating it, as open as it is now. And that, I’m almost certain he won’t do.” 

Dono sat his teacup on the side table as punctuation, and leaned back in his seat. 

René was contemplating the far wall. “Can we get thirty votes for a conviction?” he said after a moment, not raising his chin from his hands.

Dono spread his own hands, considering; they were empty. “No.”

An incredulous laugh escaped René’s lips. “Hell, Dono,” he said, with a black-edged humor. “What sort of a meeting is this, then? Misery loves company?”

“Well, I’m not going to just go home and sit on my damn hands,” retorted Dono. “I’m _trying,_ at least. I’ve been trying. But there are too many missing pieces on the board. Vorhalas, Vorpatril, Vorkosigan - and good god, is the young Count Vorkosigan a tragic disappointment. It’s a damn shame.” He sighed.

“Vorkosigan, really?” said René. “He did really well on that fuel prices thing last year, I thought, and he was Miles’ proxy several times. What’s he fallen apart over?”

“That fuel prices thing didn’t have complicated internal politics,” said Dono. “And he had a straight line to a majority vote. This sort of long shot, inspire-the-people-with-the-lint-in-your-pockets business is really his father’s playbook. My guess is, he was so used to having that as a resource that he took it for granted, and never learned to do it himself.”

“Hmm.” René was looking distractedly at the wine cart near the doorway. Dono sympathized, but stuck to his guns. And his tea.

“I don’t know that it would be enough, anyway, in the long term,” he said. Misery loves company indeed; he might as well unload all his pessimistic predictions while he had an audience. If he went over it with Olivia again, the next tea he had would be in his lap.

René looked at him quizzically. “How do you mean? That this sort of thing would keep coming up again in the future? That seems a bit pessimistic on Counts’ honor, surely.”

Dono huffed a humorless laugh. “I think we have differing perspectives on the quality of the honor of the Counts, René. But no, that’s not what I mean.” His face sobered. “Gregor’s been planning this, I’m sure of it. Vorcaron is just an accidental catalyst.”

Despite his earlier apparent resignation, René’s expressive face became skeptical.

“I don’t mean he’s been planning war, specifically,” explained Dono. “I think Vorcaron and the Counts’ stubbornness have forced his hand on that. But I do think he’s been worrying at the general problem for some time now. How does the Emperor protect his subjects if the Counts are standing in the way? We don’t have any answer for that, unfortunately, except the traditional options: one, don’t bother, which Gregor finds unacceptable; or two, fight a war, which isn’t a great choice either. I think he’s been trying to figure out a third choice, but now he’s run out of time.” He took a long drink of tea.

“What sort of third choice?” asked René. 

“If I knew that, I’d be at the Residence telling him,” said Dono. “But I’d bet you the contents of Vorkosigan’s wine cellar that the Emperor’s Select Committee on Standardization has been trying to come up with it.”

René frowned. “That’s a weights and measures thing, isn’t it? Something under the Ministry of Commerce?”

“Is it?” said Dono. “Have you seen the membership list?”

“Isn’t it just full of underministers like usual?”

“Oh yes,” said Dono. “Several underministers, several junior members of the General Staff, Lord Auditor Galeni - and not one Vor.”

René narrowed his eyes, but said nothing.

“If it is a weights and measures committee, René, where is Professor Vortaine? If it’s an arm of the Ministry of Commerce, why isn’t Junior Minister Vormercier involved? And if you wanted an Auditor on board, surely Vorsimpken’s trade expertise would be more useful than a Komarran ImpSec agent.” Dono paused for another steadying gulp of tea. “No, this is not a weights and measures committee, Count Vorbretten. It’s a ‘get the Vor in line before they provoke a democratist uprising’ committee, complete with a Komarran history professor and several trade unionists. And now Vorcaron’s antics have forced their hand, and foreclosed whatever diplomatic possibility Gregor’s been trying to work on.”

Count Vorbretten sighed. “I don’t know, Dono. Responding to Vorcaron is one thing, even with… extraordinary measures, but I can’t see the Emperor throwing over the Counts to establish a prole parliament, or something.”

“Gregor has more imagination than you do,” said Dono grimly. “And remember, he was raised by a Betan. He doesn’t see democracy as the scourge of values Count Vorsoisson keeps railing against. The only good thing is, I don’t think he’ll use the occasion to get rid of the campstool entirely. If he wants to break the Counts, he’ll need to be an Emperor to do it.”

René looked positively aghast. “Would he do that?” he managed. “_Why?_”

“Why not?” Dono shrugged. “I don’t think he likes his job very much. It’s a lot of responsibility and not as much authority as you’d think, as we all make sure. Maybe he’s tired of doing it. Maybe he doesn’t want his son to have to do it after him.”

René made an inarticulate shushing noise. “Please don’t talk treason in my drawing room,” he said, in a choked whisper.

Dono’s mouth quirked. “You don’t think that’s what we’ve been doing?”

“Of course not!” René hissed. “The Emperor wants a conviction, and we’re trying to figure out how to get him one. That’s not treason, for god’s sake, that’s _helping._ You’re sixty-six years old, Dono, I would have thought you’d have grown out of saying scandalous things for the hell of it.”

“Humor an old man, René,” said Dono, with more mirth than he remotely felt. “Some of us have to find youth in places other than our hair.”

Their meeting wound shortly to its natural conclusion after that. The tea was finished; the pastries sampled; appropriate regards passed to the cook and the respective Countesses. After such depressing conversation, they had to take the trappings of normalcy where they could. With a sigh, René did acquiesce to some vote-whipping efforts of his own - though Tatya’s connections to several of the Countesses of the Conservatives might ultimately be more helpful - but he made no promise of results.

“Everyone will be set on the merits, Dono,” he said. “Between the Counts in denial, the Counts against Imperial interference, and the Counts who just don’t care, I don’t see a lot of room to shift opinions, let alone numbers. But I’ll try.”

It was impossible through the plas-glass window of the groundcar, but as Kazov drove them back toward Vorrutyer House, Dono fancied he could hear René’s unearthly violin. A fitting elegy, he decided, for the aristocracy of the imminently past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gregor Vortinari will drag the Counts kicking and screaming into the Century of the Fruitbat, so help him.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end, and the beginning. Dono's assumptions are challenged.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of the Council procedure is cribbed from A Civil Campaign, but much of it is made up out of whole cloth and my personal experience with overly flowery political/lawyerly phrasing. It seemed to fit.

Things continued in much the same vein for the next two weeks. Dono continued his campaign for sanity among the Counts, who mostly ignored him. Lord Vorrutyer went off on an Escobaran holiday with his family, and his father’s emphatic blessing. Olivia continued to monitor her downstairs information sources, to little additional result.

Dono was eating breakfast in the blue parlor, staring out into the back garden. The new Earth hydrangeas were blooming out of season, he noticed. Pretty, but probably some sort of acclimation problem. Their gardener had gone out to Vorrutyer Valois to see about Lady Vorrutyer’s planned apple orchard. Perhaps he should ask the Dowager Countess Vorkosigan to take a look at them. She was still in grey, he knew, but she might appreciate the excursion. 

“Dono.”

He looked up to see Olivia at the door. She looked grim.

“Laisa left for Komarr this morning,” she said, shutting the door behind her. “With Princess Kareen and all the younger princes. They left the Crown Prince behind - but not his wife.”

“As scheduled, isn’t it?” said Dono, frowning. “They’ve been planning this trip for months - though I did think they were supposed to take the Crown Prince.”

Olivia crossed to the table. “Yes, but… Dono, they took the replicators. I heard it from the custodian at ImpMil. Both the Imperial grandchildren broke orbit an hour ago.”

Well. There was only one reason he could see for that. Gregor wouldn’t want a replicator in the middle of a firefight - again. Olivia, with her grave expression, was clearly thinking the same thing. Dono closed his eyes. He had known this day was coming, but the certainty of its imminent arrival was a blow for which he was not, in fact, prepared.

“He’ll call the vote next,” he said. “Tomorrow, probably. Why waste time? The clock’s ticking on that Komarran holiday. And then a week from now we’ll all troop up to Vorhartung in our residual splendor, and then…” 

There was silence. After a moment, Dono broke it again himself.

“I don’t suppose,” he said resignedly, “that if I suggested you go off to Vorrutyer Valois with a brace of armsmen, that I would get any response other than scorn.” He gave his wife a fond, sad look.

“No,” she said gently, with a wry smile, looking down at him. “You would not. We have twelve armsmen - and I can handle a stunner as well as any of them, mind you - and a house that was built as a fortress, and you’ll be voting with the Emperor. And you’re my husband. I’m staying.”

Dono was torn between worried and relieved. He did appreciate that whatever happened, Olivia would be his partner in it. As always. He took her hand, and kissed it; a habitual gesture of affection that recalled their years of shared life.

“Well,” he said, simplicity overlying an emotion that he knew she saw. “That’s it then.”

\---

Dono was right about the Emperor’s timing. The official summons to a special prosecutorial session of the Council of Counts arrived the next day, delivered by a stone-faced Vorbarra armsman. Dono sighed, and went to dredge up his best House uniform. You’d barely be able to see it under the robes, but it seemed the thing to do, for the occasion. Olivia watched him solemnly from the hallway as he fussed over the state of the embroidery.

The mood at Vorhartung the next week was strange. A thread of tension wound through the otherwise ordinary pre-vote mingling, clashing heavily with a contrary thread of near celebration. More than a handful of Counts were now wearing the same expression Dono had adopted weeks ago; unease, disquiet, a baffled dissonance with their cheerfully oblivious peers. Vorharopulos and Vorpinski had worked all the way through to grim certainty, he noted; they both had an extra pair of armsmen at their heels. Dono hadn’t bothered, for himself. Lesalle and Kazov were with the groundcar, but he didn’t want them inside the Castle. They’d have to stay in the antechamber in any case, and if this meeting were the kickoff for something Imperially ugly, any number of armsmen would be useless. Dorca hadn’t picked twenty because it was a serious challenge to the Emperor’s forces, after all.

On the other side of the antechamber, Vorcaron’s supporters were much more upbeat. In their eyes, Dono knew, this was at worst an overplayed hand, easily defeated - and at best, a rare opportunity to score a point from the Residence, and see the Emperor on his back foot for once. 

Dono knew which way he’d be voting, of course, and what result he’d bet on, but he was having trouble deciding whose preferred outcome would be worse. On the one hand, Vorcaron and his cronies were despicable, and every version of himself he’d ever been would like to kick them each in the balls. On the other… Dono did not want to see yet another generation of Barrayarans either run onto each others’ bayonets, or survive to grow up jumping at every shadow and imagined ImpSec agent. He sighed to himself. Normally, this sort of occasion was an excellent opportunity to gladhand, but under the circumstances, he didn’t have the heart to mingle.

Remarkably, between the dueling motivators of trepidation and enthusiasm, every Count was present, and on time. As they trickled into the Council Chamber, Dono scanned the gallery. No sign of the Crown Prince, but that was to be expected. He doubted the Emperor would risk having the two of them in the same building until this was over. He was probably off in some panic room in the middle of the Residence, surrounded by ImpSec - or armsmen, if Gregor were feeling particularly paranoid. Vorbarra father-son bonding was a strange and terrifying thing, Dono reflected. The most stressful such moment with Dmitry had been a primer on the temporally-extended Vorrutyer family tree, and that had been quite enough blood and politics for both of them.

It took the Counts rather longer to be settled in their seats than usual. There was a great deal of circulation around the Chamber, though Dono noticed that the excited and the solemn camps avoided one another. In the gallery, whispers swept from one side to the other like a tidal flow and ebb, with occasional breakers of louder conversation intruding on the floor below, too confused to make out words.

A few minutes til the hour, the doors behind the dias opened, and the Emperor swept into the Chamber - in full parade dress uniform, with no less than four armsmen at his heels. 

Dono sucked in a breath. Gregor’s discomfort with the parade uniform was notorious, and he’d long ago reduced his use of it to the ornamental sash over a somber suit or House Vorbarra uniform, depending on the occasion. He hadn’t worn the full red-and-blues, except for the formal Midsummer Review, in twenty years. And Gregor dealt in subtleties; a symbol this blatant was a hammer blow. A wave of muttering and fidgeting passed through the Chamber, as the other Counts, and the spectators in the gallery, arrived at similar conclusions.

Dono felt a rush of bittersweet schadenfreude. No doubt a few more of his peers believed him now - but it wouldn’t be thirty. He could see Vorcaron’s smug face across the chamber. Confident in his vote count, the man hadn’t even bothered to be dramatically late. If he were smart enough to parse the uniform, he probably assumed it was a bluff.

Gregor seated himself on the dais in silence, looking very serious and every inch the Emperor. He ignored the fidgeting entirely. The armsmen arranged themselves on the floor around him, implacable and subtly menacing in their black and silver livery.

Precisely on time, and at the Emperor’s nod, the Lord Guardian of the Speaker’s Circle called the room to order. 

Immediately, Count Vorparadijs rose to be recognized. “Due to the sensitive nature of the proposed agenda for this meeting,” he said, “I move to deactivate the vidcording equipment, in the interests of security and propriety.”

Count Vorauthier rose as well. “I second this motion,” he said, “and I further move to empty the gallery, for the same reasons.”

“I second Count Vorauthier’s motion,” said Count Vorparadijs immediately.

The motion to vote on the motions by one voice, and the subsequent vote on the motions by one voice, passed without incident or enthusiasm. Dono cursed the inefficiency of Council procedure. He’d admit it in this respect, at least; he was too old for this much anticipation.

Gregor raised a hand to the tech in the vidcorder gantry above the door, who dutifully fiddled with his equipment for a bit and then disappeared down the ladder to the antechamber. The noise from the gallery rose briefly in volume as the spectators were shuffled along to the exits by the Lord Guardian’s underlings, and then died away as the doors were shut behind them. Save for the Lord Guardian himself, and the four Vorbarra armsmen, the Counts were alone.

The Lord Guardian cleared his throat. “Comes now the Lord Count as witness and as sponsor,” he intoned, in the traditional words of introduction for a prosecution. “Let he who bears a charge against his peer approach the Speaker’s Circle with his evidence, and be heard.” The butt of the cavalry spear descended on the flagstone floor for emphasis.

All eyes turned to the dais - but the rustle of a man standing came from Dono’s left. To his astonishment, it was the young Count Vorkosigan who was descending to the Circle, with an entire stack of flimsies in his hand. His Vorkosigan brown and silver glittered underneath his new Count’s robes in the direct light of the Speaker’s Circle.

“I come with cause and witness against the Count Vorcaron,” said Aral Alexander firmly, overriding the incipient murmuring around the benches with the formal phrasing. “On my honor, the evidence I will offer is true as I will speak it: in fact, in phrasing, or in provenance. This by my word as Vorkosigan.”

Dono’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. This was not, by a long shot, the callow, unsure boy from their first conversation. Was Gregor feeding him his lines? Surely the Emperor had orchestrated the laying of the charge, at least. Perhaps the self-assured air was mere stage presence, buoyed by confidence in his Imperial backer. 

“The charges that lie upon my evidence are as follows,” continued Aral Alexander. “Assault. Battery. Blackmail. Coercive reproductive interference. Denigration of familial obligations. Dereliction of administrative duty. False imprisonment. Fraud in the inducement. Grievous bodily harm. Interference in Imperial Security operations. Labor negotiation in bad faith. Negligence in employment safety practices. Negligence in public biohealth. Nonfulfillment of common carrier obligations. Poisoning. Receipt of procurement of a minor. Subordination of service contracts to the Imperial Military. Unauthorized practice of surgery. Wage theft.”

Dono glanced around the chamber incredulously, to find many of his peers doing the same. The list of charges was ridiculous. It included the Kurnetsov affair, the District mismanagement, and everything but the kitchen sink; surely more than even the most Progressive selection of Counts would affirm with their actual votes. Some of them, such as “interference in Imperial Security operations” and “subordination of service contracts to the Imperial Military,” were a surprise to Dono - had Vorcaron’s shipping disruptions finally impacted ImpMil’s transit schedules? But others, “dereliction of administrative duty” and “unauthorized practice of surgery” among them, were legally inapplicable to a Count. Was the young Vorkosigan improvising? This part, surely, could not be on the Imperial script. What audience would be impressed by it, with the vidcorder inoperative and the gallery dismissed? How could this strategy possibly ensure more votes?

“As evidence,” continued Count Vorkosigan, “I first submit the vidcorded testimony of one Jacques Bisset, head groom to Count Vorcaron, conducted under fast-penta under the authority and supervision of Imperial Security.”

At Gregor’s nod to the Lord Guardian, a screen descended above the Emperor’s head, and the image of the hapless groom’s face filled it. He rambled on in drooling ecstasy for several minutes, discussing the equipment of his stables, the use to which it was habitually put, and the much more horrifying use to which he had apparently been personal witness some six weeks ago.

Below the groom’s ersatz visage on the screen, the Emperor sat stone-faced, eyes fixed straight ahead and slightly upward.

Dono glanced around the chamber. Many of the counts looked uncomfortable, but unsurprised. Several Vorcaron supporters, Vorauthier and Vorparadijs chief among them, looked merely bored. Counts Vorpinski and Vorharopulos continued to look grim, the latter glancing repeatedly at the closed chamber door.

The show continued with the other charges. Vorkosigan had sources near, far, and District-bound, no few of them compelled by ImpSec. As trials went, it was both conscientious and a farce; Dono could not truly say that any evidence presented was a fraud, and yet the whole thing stank of puppeteering. The details of Miss Kurnetsov’s circumstances, past and present, were displayed at length, with special emphasis on her childhood poverty, her mother’s lack of medical assistance, and the contrast with the circumstances of her previous yard manager employer and the Count. Familiar already with the quotidian poverty of menials in the countryside, the other Counts grew bored.

“Why are they bothering?” Dono heard Count Vorreedi mutter next to him. “They must know they don’t have the votes.”

“I assume he’s making a point,” Dono muttered back. 

Vorreedi sighed. “I wish he’d hurry up and make it, then. It’s been an hour.”

As the evidence wound to its protracted close, the Lord Guardian chanced a glance or two at Gregor, looking for instruction. At last, Vorkosigan concluded, and retreated with a flourish to his bench. A pregnant silence fell. A few coughs and shuffling flimsies broke it, but no words.

With no further arguments forthcoming, and at the Emperor’s nod, the Lord Guardian approached the Circle himself, cavalry spear in hand, and with ancient ceremony began the roll call for the vote.

“Voraiken!”

“Not guilty.”

“Voraronberg!”

“Not guilty.”

“Vorauthier!”

“Not guilty!”

Excellent, thought Dono sourly. Vorcaron’s supporters couldn’t have had a better start if they’d coordinated - which, of course, they had.

“Vorbarra!”

“Pass,” the Emperor said calmly.

Dono saw Vorcaron smile at this. Under normal circumstances, an Imperial pass was a face-saving move. If the vote carried, the Emperor could add his own vote, for emphasis; if it tied (not possible with today’s full complement), he could break it; if it failed, he could abstain, and save everyone the awkwardness of open conflict. Dono did not think that saving the Counts from conflict was on the Emperor’s agenda for today, however.

“Vorbataille!”

“Not guilty.”

“Vorberg!”

“Guilty.”

“Vorbretten!”

“Guilty.”

“Vorcaron!”

“Not guilty!”

It hardly seemed fair that Vorcaron could vote to acquit himself, but that was Vor justice for you. As the vote continued onwards down the alphabet, Dono kept track of the totals. It wasn’t going particularly well, even considering his low expectations. Either his peers were idiots at politics, or he was. He sighed inwardly.

“Vorreedi!”

“Not guilty.”

“Vorrutyer!”

“Guilty,” said Dono firmly. He’d done his part. It wouldn’t be enough, though. By his count, he was the sixteenth vote to convict, and there were only nineteen more to go.

The roll continued, to its natural conclusion.

“Vorvolk!”

“Guilty.”

“Vorvolynkin!”

“Not guilty.”

“Vorwynne!”

“Not guilty.”

Forty for acquittal. Dono winced. He’d thought they’d do better than that, at least. Perhaps the swollen list of charges had put off a few. The chamber was still buzzing with that strange mix of triumph and dread, however. The Emperor had passed, not abstained; they weren’t done yet.

“Vorbarra!”

Gregor took his time in speaking. He seemed to be collecting himself. When he opened his mouth, however, it wasn’t to vote.

“The Imperium exists within its people,” the Emperor began, looking out over the heads of the assembled Counts. “It is brought to life, every day, by their breath in their voice, and their soul on their breath, and by the loyalty and dedication represented by their oaths. To hold those oaths is Our honor, and Our duty, and Our Counts in turn hold those oaths in trust on Our behalf. To disregard the welfare of the people is to fail in the fulfillment of those oaths - and a failure in that regard is an insult to the Imperium entire.”

It was a good speech, Dono conceded, if no small departure from the legal theories forged by Dorca’s wars. But Vorcaron, who was smirking, still wasn’t taking Gregor seriously. He probably assumed it was a disappointed admonition, rather than an opening salvo. 

Gregor wasn’t looking at the Counts, however. His gaze was fixed on the same spot where it had wandered during the recitation of the evidence: on the far wall, above the door. Contemplating his unfortunate predecessor? No - wait - 

Dono’s eyes widened in sudden horrified epiphany. The _vidcorder._ It must still be on! This whole pantomime - the extraneous charges, the comprehensive scope of evidence, and especially the dramatic sentiments of Gregor's speech - _this_ was the audience for whose benefit this morning’s show had played. He could see no light from the recording indicator, but that was no evidence of anything. At this distance, no one would notice a cap, or even a piece of black tape. The ImpSec agent Allegre must have substituted for the normal operator could simply have left it running when he had left the chamber earlier, and no one in the Castle, other than the techs in the broadcast center (or had they been replaced as well?), would have been any the wiser.

He swallowed, his mouth dry. So this was Gregor’s play. All of Barrayar had just heard evidence of the worst sort against a Count - and then watched forty of his peers vote “not guilty” anyway, in reliance on their supposed obscurity. And now they were watching the Emperor come to the proles’ defense. 

This had been Gregor’s plan all along, he realized. Not a war: an iron-fisted velvet revolution, a coup from the top down. And he’d been playing Dono with the rest of them. Their conversation in the Residence _had_ been a performance on the Emperor’s part - a smokescreen? A distraction? A ploy to add votes of fear to votes of moral outrage? Perhaps Gregor really had needed only ten good men in Vorhartung. 

But the Emperor’s strategy made sense. Why break the Counts by force when you could simply go over - or under - their heads? The engines of the Barrayaran government - ImpSec; the General Staff; even, or especially, the Ministries - were run mostly by the proles, now, and certainly staffed by them. The Counts, and indeed the Vor as a class, were superfluous to the daily operations of the Imperium. Dono’s hands tightened on the arms of his chair. His chiding René about a prole parliament had been only half-serious, but now he wondered. Would Gregor really go that far?

“The vocation of the Vor is sacrifice in leadership,” the Emperor was saying. “And the duty of the Counts is to lead their Districts, and the Imperium, with honor and in the service of their Emperor, and the oaths We hold. A Count who refuses to lead, or who leads without honor, has abdicated his responsibility.” He paused.

Dono held his breath. Every eye in the room, and on the planet, if Dono’s deduction was correct, was on the Emperor. “Abdicated” was a better word than “betrayed,” but...

“We cannot abide this injustice, or this erosion of the values of the Imperium,” the Emperor continued. “Count Vorcaron, and every Count who voted, against all evidence and honor, to acquit him, is hereby stripped of his Countship, and exiled from the capital. We Request and Require that their heirs appear before Us with all due speed, to make oath to their Emperor and assume their positions of authority - and responsibility. May they serve with more honor than their predecessors.”

A shocked silence fell over the chamber. The Emperor’s face, dead center in the view of the vidcorder, was an implacable stone mask.

Dono exhaled. That… was not as bad as he had feared. That speech had been more than an ornament on a moment of political drama, of course; it was a mission statement, and the political class of the Imperium, Vor or otherwise, would likely be analyzing it word by word for years. Undoubtedly, the Select Committee on Standardization already had. But as a culmination to all these weeks of tension, it felt downright anti-climactic to end with a speech instead of a shoot-out - if the now ex-Counts would take it, anyway. If they went back to their Districts and plotted, it would come to war later regardless - if they could scrounge the troops. More subtle unrest, and more insidious violence, if they could not. 

But, he realized, that would make the Counts the aggressors, the breachers of the peace - and the Emperor its righteous defender, offering mercy with one hand but dispensing ruthless justice with the other. Gregor had made this a war of propaganda, as all civil wars must ultimately be, and stacked the deck for himself from the start. Either the Counts would back down, and the Emperor would gain the precedential ability to reorganize their number at will, or at least on the frequent occasion of their disregard of the populace — or they would attempt a coup without an army, and when the dust settled, there would be no independent Counts. All roads led to victory for the Emperor. Dono shook his head slightly. He would never, under any circumstances, play chess with Gregor Vorbarra. It could not possibly end well.

Vorcaron’s face was purple. “You can’t do this!” he exclaimed, rising to his feet. “We won’t stand for it!”

“What an interesting assertion, Vorcaron,” said the Emperor, quietly and with deliberate omission. “With what army will you be making it?”

Vorcaron’s face paled. On either side of him, both René and Count Vordarian were leaning as far away from their unfortunate neighbor as possible without making it obvious. Both of them had voted for conviction, out of honor and generational guilt respectively, but nobody wanted to be caught in Vorcaron’s blast radius at the moment, even visually. They all knew Vorcaron had no play. In opposition to an Emperor of seasoned decades, and without any military service of his own to draw upon, the now ex-Count Vorcaron had no hope of swaying Imperial troops to his very dubious cause.

“In the interest of preserving the peace within the capital,” the Emperor continued in a harder voice, “the exile in question is effective immediately. The officers of Our Imperial Security will see to it.”

On cue, the doors of the Council Chamber burst open, to admit a double line of Horus eyes. Behind them, in the antechamber, Dono could just make out a Vorcaron armsman, in his chartreuse and silver; he seemed to be in handcuffs.

Under such implied duress, the disgraced Counts departed mostly without protest. They really had no choice; none of them had armsmen on the floor, and even if they had, their numbers would be too few and their stunner-dependent tactics too limited. They could squawk all they liked from their Districts, and Dono was certain that they would, but the legality of Gregor’s fiat would not be usefully debated here. And any Count who ran today as good as signed his treasonous death warrant. Like the residual Counts of the previous Imperial paragon of Justice, the remaining body would vote with their renewed Imperial master under threat of existential, if not vital, termination.

Twenty remained, in the wake of the forced exodus; eighteen, and Gregor, and the younger Aral. Once the last ex-Count had cleared the antechamber, the Emperor retreated to his conference room behind the dais, flanked by armsmen and Imperial Security. On his way out, he stopped a moment by his cousin’s son: a brief acknowledgement; a handclasp on the shoulder; a rare Imperial smile. And then he was gone, and the ostensibly ethical minority was left to sort their future from their past.

\---

On his own way out, Dono approached the young Count Vorkosigan. He had not missed Gregor’s hand on the boy’s shoulder, earlier, and he was sure the others hadn’t either. The less astute among the remaining Counts might assume Vorkosigan a puppet, strung along on his Imperial cousin’s leash in inverted parody of the earlier generation. Dono knew better. That frustrating conversation a month ago had been a deliberate plant, he was now certain, and he would bet Vorrutyer House that the boy had sown others in the same field. After all, who would expect the coup de grace from a twenty-three year old, still unsure of himself and only halfway out of mourning?

“I expected to be played by Gregor,” he said in a low voice, once Vorkosigan’s other petitioners has dissipated. “But I didn’t expect it from you.” 

He held the young Count’s gaze a moment. Aral stared back, unapologetic and unfazed. 

“Well done,” Dono said finally. “Count Vorkosigan.” And with a deliberate, acknowledging nod, he left Count Aral Vorkosigan, and Emperor Gregor the Just, to their chosen uncertainties of the future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know, there’s no blood on the walls. I recognize this may be unsatisfactory for some. I regret nothing, however; it was the natural end of the story. There may be an epilogue, which may answer some of your remaining questions, but I do not, at this time, plan to extend this story any further than that. As some commenters have pointed out, the Counts have no armies to raise, apart from any they might peel off from ImpMil, and rebelling against ones’ lawful Emperor is a big step beyond rebelling against an allegedly ill-chosen Regent. By the time Gregor gets to the other side of the Hegen Hub Crisis, I don’t think any military rebellion against his authority is likely, at all, for the rest of his life. Let’s all hope he lives to see his son see the other side of twenty, or preferably thirty; having been both ages, I know at which one I’d rather find myself leading an Empire.
> 
> Also, I reread most of canon to get a comprehensive list of Vor/Count names, just so I could do the vote roll call properly, because I’m just that anal. I counted 46 canon Vor names likely to have a Count (so, excluding Vorhartung, Vorkraft, Vorzohn, Vorvayne, and Vorbohn), and then made up an additional 14 of my own for a full set. If I missed any, either they were first mentioned in Cryoburn or later, or I just wasn’t as observant I thought I was.


End file.
